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Bppletons’ 
Howu aitC* Country 
Xtbrarg 

No. 2)2 


SUNSET 


NOVELS BY BEATRICE WHITBY. 

The Awakening of Mary Fenwick. 

i2mo. Paper, 50 cents ; cloth, $i.co. 

“ Miss Whitby is far above the average novelist. . . . This story is 
original without seeming ingenious, and powerful without being over- 
drawn.” — New York Commercial Advertiser. 

“ An admirable portrayal of the development of human character 
under novel experiences.” — Boston Commonwealth. 

Part of the Property. 

i2mo. Paper, 50 cents ; cloth, $1.00. 

“The book is a thoroughly good one. The theme is the rebellion of 
a spirited girl against a match which has been arranged for her without 
her knowledge or consent. ... It is refreshing to read a novel in which 
there is not a trace of slipshod work.” —London Spectator. 

A Matter of Skill. 

i2mo. Paper, 50 cents ; cloth, $i.co. 

“ A very charming love-story, whose heroine is drawn with original 
skill and beauty, whom everybody will love for her splendid if very in- 
dependent character.” — Boston Home Jojtrnal. 

One Reason Why. 

i2mo. Paper, 50 cents ; cloth, $x.oo. 

“ A remarkably well-written story. . . . The author makes her people 
speak the language of every-day life, and a vigorous and attractive real- 
ism pervades the book, which provides excellent entertainment from be- 
ginning to end.” — Boston Saturday Evening Gazette. 

In the Suntime of her Youth. 

i2mo. Paper, 50 cents ; cloth, $1.00. 

“ The story has a refreshing air of novelty, and the people that figure 
in it are depicted with a vivacity and subtlety that are very attractive.” — 
Boston Beacon. 

Mary Fenwick’s Daughter. 

i2mo. Paper, 50 cents ; cloth, $i.co. 

“ A clever and wholesome story, and contains some able studies of 
character.”— ^Charleston News and Courier. 

On the Lake of Lucerne, and Other Stories. 

i6mo. Half cloth, with specially designed cover, 50 cents. 

“ Six short stories carefully and conscientiously finished, and told with 
the graceful ease of the practical raconteur." — Literary Digest. 

D. APPLETON & CO., Publishers, New York. 



SUNSET 



BEATRICE WHITBY 

AUTHOR OF 

THE AWAKENING OF MARY FENWICK, ONE REASON WHY, 
IN THE SUNTIME OF HER YOUTH, ETC. 



NEW YORK 
D. APPLETON AND C 


1898 

f 


of c,o»e^ 

^ offtCl Of 

# c 81 “S 

COPIES RECEIVED 


i 


4430 


Copyright, 1897, 

By D. APPLETON AND COMPANY. 


0 9 ~ 


SUNSET. 


CHAPTER I. 

0, Lady dear, hast thou no fear, 

Why and what art thou dreaming here f 

Edgar Allan Poe. 

The nursery was not an inviting precinct in the 
little house in Norton Street. Both it and its con- 
troller Elizabeth were alike overworked, the nurse 
was alluded to by her mistress as a “ good, dull, old 
factotum.” The possessor of so useful a flesh and 
blood machine as a factotum may be congratulated, 
though the human machinery, personally, is not to be 
envied overmuch. 

If the nurse was said to be a factotum, then her 
domain in its way was a factotum too, for it was day 
and night nursery, it was work-room and fitting-room, 
and play-room, all inclosed in seventeen by fifteen 
feet of space. 

Fortunately its five-year-old occupant was not of 
an age to be critical, the nursery contained all her 
treasures and therefore her heart; and she sat flat 
upon the linoleum floor, a tattered doll lying supine 
across her thin little legs, hard at work; and was, in 
her quiet way, quite happy and content. 

She cast a glance from her mild blue eyes oe- 
1 


2 


SUNSET. 


casionally at her offspring, but she was too seriously 
engaged in the threading of a bead necklet to waste 
time on pleasure. 

A needle in Alix’s life was a serious thing, it was 
an implement of labor such as no one would dream 
of treating lightly. 

A deal table above her head was littered with an en- 
tanglement of thread, reels, pins, scraps, lining, tapes, 
ribbons, laces, and silk, out of which confounding 
disorder skillful hands and a needle were called upon 
to evolve order in the form of raiment. Beyond 
the deal table, behind the child, stood an open 
box of crippled toys — toys crippled in honest service, 
but out of which no creditable resurrection was 
possible. 

Alix was an only child, and she spent a great part 
of this evening hour alone — she was alone now. By 
nature children, like animals, object to their own 
company; art, in the form of custom, had familiarized 
the little girl with solitude; she did not grumble at 
being left alone, nor for some time did she realize 
that she was shivering, or that the fire in the grate 
was on the wane. Such warmth as the sinking coals 
gave out was fenced off by a barrier of silk and 
“ lacy ” garments that hung on the high guard. 

It was a bitterly cold day toward the end of Feb- 
ruary, and after a while Alix was conscious that some 
power was working against her; the needle would not 
do its duty, because of the stiffness of her perished 
fingers, — cold must pinch viciously before little people 
recognize its existence. 

But when a favorite bead, bigger and brighter 
than its neighbors, rolled out of her grasp, and at 


SUNSET. 


3 


the same instant the needle, slipping, pierced the 
palm of her left hand, she consciously shivered, 
and rising stiffly to her feet fell foul of her perse- 
cutor. 

“ It is being so cold, so very cold,” she said, shak- 
ing her wounded hand with a vague idea of frighten- 
ing the smart out of it. 

She was a patient child, and she was fairly plucky, 
— though the little room in London did not conduce 
to hardihood — but when she saw a drop or two of 
blood, that had oozed from the ball of her thumb, 
she became certain that she was hurt, and she began 
to be alarmed. 

There was no one to reassure her, no one to say 
that it was nothing, to console and confuse her into 
that state of bewilderment, in which nursery bumps 
and bruises are supposed to heal most readily. 

In the scare she dropped her box of beads, fell 
over her cherished Yiolet, and called for her nurse, 
who was out of earshot and did not come. 

“ Issabissa,” she cried, “ Issabissa, I have got a 
poor hand. You come and see, do come here and 
see.” 

The wording of the tragedy seemed, as it con- 
stantly does, to heighten the injury; when Elizabeth 
did not come and did not answer, Alix was filled with 
consternation; and she to whom tears were a forbid- 
den luxury began to cry. 

“ Tush, tush, for shame! What in the world is 
the matter now? ” 

Sorrow would often — I had almost written always 
— be scolded if humanity had its way — and humanity 
can have its way with a child. 


4 


SUNSET. 


“ All alone and crying. Come, come, Miss Alix, 
for shame.” 

This bracing greeting came from Ellen, the house- 
maid, who at this moment entered the nursery with 
a hot-water can in her hand. The u shame ” of be- 
ing alone and crying dried Alix’s eyes; b’lame is more 
bracing than the air of the east coast, even though 
the blame be unreasonable as this; for solitary grief 
may be a luxury to a poet, but not to a child. 

“ Where is Issabissa? ” she asked, her voice quaver- 
ing. “ I want Issabissa.” 

“ Elizabeth is with your ma,” said Ellen, looking 
about her, and taking in all the discomforts of the 
room with a professional eye. “ No wonder you are 
crying, Miss Alix. Why, you are starved with the 
cold.” 

There was sympathy now in Ellen’s voice, to which 
Alix responded by stretching out her palm to show 
the wound. The disappointing blood was gone, but 
even in this world of vast surprises she was astonished 
to find the pain gone too. 

“ It is got better,” she said apologetically, — with- 
out a witness to its existence pain is treated with in- 
credulity, — “ but I did have a poor hand. Mother’s 
got plaster, little tiny bits,” admiringly, “ of black 
plaster.” 

“ Plaster, fiddlesticks! There is nothing to be 
seen. You are blue with the cold, chilled through 
and through, that is what’s the matter with you.” 

Grown-up people know best, no doubt; Alix ac- 
cepted Ellen’s remark, and turned her attention like- 
wise to the fire, the expiring life of which the good- 
natured woman set about saving scientifically. 


SUNSET. 5 

Science demands sacrifice, but Alix did not know 
that. 

“ You shall see me light the fire up a bit, Miss 
Alix,” said she, walking over to the heap of mangled 
remains confined in the box, and selecting therefrom 
stray legs and wheels, stumps and odds and ends from 
unrecognizable portions of toys. “ We will have a 
blaze in a couple of minutes,” and she unhitched the 
high guard, pulling it aside so that Alix could press 
in beside her, and look at the irresistibly fascinating 
forbidden-fruit of fire-making. 

Alix watched Ellen’s fat, red enviable fingers stow 
the dry wood among the coal, she watched the stack- 
ing of the pile, she watched the striking of the matches 
and the kindling of the flames. 

The sight was so entrancing, that until the guard 
was replaced and the fire was flaming red and warm, 
Alix did not count the cost of the entertainment. 

Then with a pang at heart she walked across the 
room, and kneeling down before the toy-box anxiously 
scanned its contents; she had had many a casualty, 
but never an absolute loss among her remnants of 
dear friends. Her peeky little face grew longer than 
ever, her lips straightened, she began to search among 
the debris, scattering it right and left; all the time 
she did this the murderous crackling and clicking went 
on in the grate. 

“ Ellen has burned Brownie,” she said to herself, 
her anxiety becoming articulate at last. Her sense 
of justice prevented her from making her accusation 
quite aloud, for if Brownie was burned she had had 
a share in the cremation ; she had recognized some legs 
and reels and odds and ends and had let them go, 


6 


SUNSET. 


but she bad not seen ber dear old Brownie in tbe 
conflagration. 

Ellen bad not intended that she should do so, she 
bad purposely concealed the identity of tbe little 
brown two-legged horse, thrusting his inflammable 
carcass well back among the coals; for Ellen knew 
that children are capricious and that they value queer 
bits of rubbish ; she wanted a substantial bit of tinder, 
if she was to succeed in the Herculean task of rekin- 
dling a dying flame. Yes, Ellen had burned Brownie; 
Alix found his off hind leg, the one with the tin tack 
hammered into it, but the little horse himself was 
gone. She went slowly back to the fireside stunned 
by her bereavement; she could just see over the fence 
of airing clothes upon the guard, and watch the fire 
making merry with its victims. Poking his tough 
blackened head through the bars, Alix recognized her 
poor toy, his familiar face was unaltered, though his 
wretched body was char and ash. 

“ Ellen, here he is, I see him,” the cry was exult- 
ing, and arrested Ellen in the doorway. “ Get him 
out, take him out ; he’s got his head through, and he’s 
burning all to pieces.” 

If the child had not begun to cry again, when she 
hesitated about rescuing the horse, Ellen said after- 
ward that she should most certainly have done as she 
was asked, though the toy was black all over and 
not fit to be touched. But every one in the house 
knew that Miss Alix was not to be spoiled, every one 
knew that Mr. Beaumont had a horror of spoiled chil- 
dren. Therefore a point was to be made of never ful- 
filling any desire of the little girl, if such fulfillment 
cost serious trouble. 


SUNSET. 


7 


So Ellen still stood at the door with the can in 
her hand, and said, “ Hush, Miss Alix, you have got 
a box full of toys. Hush, hush, for shame to make 
such a noise with a strange young lady next door. 
The ’orse is burned now, and that’s the long and short 
of it.” 

“ Get him out,” passionately, “ take him out.” 

“ Hush, hush. You will have a policeman here to 
know what is the matter. Little girls who cry for 
nothing, must be given something to cry for.” 

There is a large crop of the great incomprehensi- 
ble “ must” in nursery life. Little girls who cry for 
nothing must be given something to cry for. Alix had 
heard that decree before. Was the “ nothing ” the 
death of her Brownie? Then what would the dread- 
ful “ something ” be? 

She turned back again to the fire in silence. 

“ There, there, be a good child; ” Ellen was sorry 
about the horse, but Miss Alix could not be allowed 
to cry with her father not 'far off, and a visitor next 
door within earshot. “ Crying won’t bring that old 
bit of rubbish out of the fire; you go and play with 
your dolly, she’s lying at your feet.” 

So saying, Ellen closed the door, and went off 
straightway with the hot water to the tiresome young 
lady, whose advent that afternoon had put poor Ellen 
out; for in that house work was plentiful, and space 
exceeding scarce. Therefore a visitor, whose visit the 
servants heard was to be of indefinite length, was not 
in one sense a welcome guest. 

The little spare room was, in fact, not spare at all. 
All that morning Ellen had been removing stacks of 
her mistress’s superfluous clothes from the wardrobes 


8 


SUNSET. 


and clipboards therein, and carting them to new quar- 
ters. Every peg and drawer had been emptied for 
Miss Blake’s convenience at infinite labor, and here 
the young lady stood in the middle of her room, with 
an armful of clothes, and asked Ellen, in a vigorous, 
brisk tone, 

“ Where can I put my things? ” 

She was such a tall young lady, broad too; the 
tiny room was a ludicrous size both for her, and for 
her shoals of belongings. 

Ellen looked round at the boxes and rugs, holdalls 
arid bags, and said somewhat gruffly, 

“ In the wardrobe, miss, or the cupboard. I 
cleared all my mistress’s dinner dresses out of this 
room this morning. I am afraid there isn’t another 
hole in the house, where you could put as much as a 
petticoat.” It seemed that Miss Blake was a reason- 
able person, for she gave a comprehending, good- 
humored nod, and allowed Ellen to get away without 
any waste of words, or of labor. 

Frances Blake was always reasonable, she was usu- 
ally good-humored, but she was not specially adaptable. 
She looked about her, and thought it would not be 
easy to fit herself comfortably into this tiny room : she 
was used to space, and she liked space. However, she 
had deliberately chosen to make her cousin’s little 
house in Norton Street her headquarters for a while; 
she had done this, as she did most things, of her own 
free will. She was of an age to judge for herself, and 
she thought herself capable of counting costs; she was 
five-and-twenty years old. For many a year now she 
had known her own mind, and, unthwarted, had fol- 
lowed its commonplace inclinations. She considered 


SUNSET. 


9 


herself a lucky woman, she had a clear head, an even 
temper, as many friends as she needed; and last, hut 
not least, a nice handy little income of eight hundred 
pounds a year, which formed a firm background to 
an independent spirit. 

Her fortune was a windfall of recent years, and 
she, who had a great appreciation of the comforts of 
life, appreciated her possession. 

Life with her had been easy, she had not hankered 
for its exaggerated delights, she had wished to be 
comfortable, and she was comfortable. She had no 
extravagant tastes, she was not dangerously good- 
looking, she had not been at all seriously in love since 
she was seventeen, she had had no exuberant emotions; 
her health was excellent, her strongest sense had been 
common sense. 

Of late her life and her plans had alike been upset 
by her only relative, a widowed sister, who had elected 
to marry again. Constance had chosen to marry a 
dull, respectable, briefless barrister, and consequently 
the home in Devonshire which the sisters shared was, 
for the time at least, shut up, and Frances was left 
alone. 

It was she who had settled that Wayfield should be 
closed; she made no misfortune of the situation, and 
while the pair were honeymooning on the Continent 
she left Devonshire, she left the village, Sylvester, 
where she had been reared; and planted herself for 
the time in the little house in Horton Street, — that 
narrow street which lies so near Belgrave Square, that 
air, and light, and space are hardly necessities for the 
Babylonian dwellers therein. 

“ Isabel Beaumont and I get on very well,” she 


10 


SUNSET. 


had said to her sister, discussing the pros and cons of 
the future, “ I shall put up with her — if she’ll have 
me — while you are away. I like Isabel, and I like 
being* in the house with a woman who is as decorative 
as a beautiful picture. Not clever, did you say? She 
is clever enough for me. If one wants extra intelli- 
gence there is always John, he’d provide a Minerva 
with mental exercise.” 

John Beaumont was a second cousin of the sis- 
ters, and it was his wife, Isabel, whom they were dis- 
cussing. If Mrs. Beaumont was loath that the 
dinner dresses should be driven from their haven, 
she was nothing loath to welcome Frances to her 
house. 

Frances amused John, Frances was cheery, ar- 
ranged flowers to perfection, and dressed well. She 
was well off, too, for a girl, and Mrs. Beaumont was 
the sort of a woman who appreciates all the nice things 
which are connected with £. s. d. She and her hus- 
band were suffering from the universal shrinkage of 
the age. Their income had been modest always; not 
increasing, as incomes should, with their expenses. 
Miss Blake knew this, and she had fixed her plans 
accordingly. 

“ With per cents., and rents, and business down to 
zero,” she had written, “ don’t imagine that I am going 
to bestow nothing but my society upon you. I would 
not come at all, upon my own suggestion, if that was , 
to be the arrangement.” 

She knew that Isabel would fall in with this pro- 
posal, because she was an unassertive woman, who 
was not credited with having a will of her own; and 
so she did, accepting Frances’s proffered company 


SUNSET. 


11 


graciously, as she accepted the most part of her life. 
And the question was settled. 

The master of the house liked his cousin, and was 
content to accept the plans of the womenkind; the 
solitude-a-deux in Norton Street was not of the kind 
the loss of which is grudged. During the long hours 
that the bread-winner passed in the City, digging and 
delving with no very encouraging success, it would 
be well that his wife should have a sensible woman 
in the house. Isabel was as amiable as she was fair to 
look upon, but the domestic hearth had no attraction 
for her, she lived in what John designated as an “ eter- 
nal racketing.” 

Mr. Beaumont had married for beauty, he had 
chosen a helpmate because he, like his cousin, cov- 
eted a beautiful picture in his dwelling-place. No 
man should ask more of a picture than the colors on 
the canvas, no man should be guilty of scratching 
at the paint, and running the chance of scraping it 
bare. 

But John was a man who, in business and else- 
where, was never content to let things be; he was 
not wont to be satisfied with that which he possessed, 
and he was for ever endeavoring to alter, to improve, 
to perfect his properties. Human properties occa- 
sionally do not appreciate that order of proprietor. 
John’s expectations were large, he was consequently 
fairly well assured of being what the world calls a dis- 
appointed man. Great expectations are ever a cum- 
brous possession in a work-a-day world. 

Idealizing did not run in the family, for if Frances 
had ideals she had never used them as standards by 
which to measure her neighbors. 


12 


SUNSET. 


She took people as she found them, and she gen- 
erally contrived to find them pleasant; she was truth- 
ful, therefore she was credulous and believed what 
she was told. She was not interested in the re- 
cesses, the deep nooks, the unexposed regions of 
her companions’ minds. Hitherto she had skimmed 
humanity, and was quite content to continue do- 
ing so. 

Just then a cloud was on her forehead, — she had 
a low brow on which the brown hair grew thick and 
heavy, and was brushed back to form an elaborate 
twisted coil at the back of a well-formed head; she 
stood scanning the capacities of her wardrobe with 
a critical eye; in her big airy home she had had no 
reason to study economy of space, to her economy 
of any form was distasteful. She had a wholesome, 
country horror of London smuts, and London dirt, 
and she held in her arms a delicately-wrought gown 
of peach-bloom hue; a good dress it was, a dress which 
was dear to her heart, and which seemed likely to be- 
come a white elephant, crowded as it was from drawer 
and wardrobe. 

The problem which she tried to solve was hope- 
less, space is a thing which thinking does not form. 

Hark! What was that cry? Hot a street cry, 
not one of the eternal “ winners.” Ho, there — again 
— that was close by, in the next room. The child 
was shrieking; shrill sharp cries of fear. 

Frances was a quick thinker and a quick mover, 
with the dress still in her arms she -had rushed out 
upon the landing, and burst, not a whit too soon, 
into the nursery, before the echo of the cry had 
ceased. The “ something to cry for,” which had been 


SUNSET. 


13 


threatened, had befallen the little daughter of the 
house. 

Flat upon its back, among a heap of smoking 
frills and laces, lay the high nursery guard; live coals 
were airing Mrs. Beaumont’s delicate clothing over- 
well, and beside them Alix, choking with fear, and 
smoke, and pain, her pinafore ablaze, was trying to 
lift the burning heap into position. 

The peach-bloom gown was not to be a white ele- 
phant after all, for in the twinkling of an eye Frances 
had thrown it around the little girl, and wrapping it 
closely and tightly about her, had crushed the life out 
of the flames, — the priceless lace was thick, and served 
well to smother the fire. 

The guard was roughly kicked to its duty, and 
the cambric debris thrust upon the fire; the clouds of 
smoke were choking Frances, and she carried the child 
swiftly out upon the landing and into her own room. 


2 


CHAPTER II. 


The future comes not from before to meet us, but streams up 
from behind over our head. 


Rah el Leoin. 


When Frances had laid Alix down on her bed, 
she kept one protecting hand upon the trembling child, 
and stretching out the other, she reached across to the 
hell-rope and rung it lustily. In her household at 
Wayfield this sort of disorganization was impossible. 
Why had the child been left alone, and where on 
earth were the servants? 

For the second time she caught at the bell-rope, 
and this time she absolutely pulled it down. 

It was some relief to find that this accident had 
the effect of calming poor Alix, so that through her 
tumultuous sobbing she could articulate, 

“ You have broke the bell,” she wept, “ and Issa- 
bissa don’t allow you to touch it.” 

Then she shuddered and moaned, sobbing again 
more pitifully than ever. 

Frances had always had a soft spot in her heart 
for children, but her sister was childless, and she had 
had but little to do with nursery denizens, as she 
possessed no small kith or kin save Alix. She knew 
little of the government of the high life above stairs. 

She knelt by the bed, soothing the sufferer with 
14 


SUNSET. 


15 


tender epithets such as were foreign to her lips, but 
which swelled up impulsively from a hot heart. 

“ Where is your nurse, darling? ” 

“ She is with Mummy, I fink; she went away all 
day, dressing the wire lady.” 

“ I will go and call her.” 

And she went out upon the landing and called 
loudly and impatiently for the nurse, with a strong 
wish that she was, for a quarter of an hour or so, mis- 
tress of that culpable domestic. 

An elderly woman came panting up the stairs in 
answer to Miss Blake’s rousing summons, who, when 
she found her little lady in so sad a plight, assuaged 
Frances’s wrath by her agonies of fear and horror. 

The smoke was still thick on the landing, the 
smell of burning was creeping through the house; 
but it took a minute or more to make Elizabeth un- 
derstand what happened, for she was old and a little 
deaf. 

In those households where eggs are of necessity 
counted, some evils have to be tolerated, and Eliza- 
beth had many valuable qualities to counterbalance 
her affliction ; she sewed like a Singer, and would have 
worked her skillful fingers to the bone to please her 
mistress. 

The peach-bloom dress, blackened and tumbled, 
was still round the child; Frances had been afraid to 
touch it, and it sickened her to see Elizabeth unwrap- 
ping the folds. 

As sores and burns and wounds abound in the 
world, it is lucky that all folk are not too squeamish 
to see, to dress, and, if need be, to probe them. Com- 
passion is not first aid to the wounded. Frances was 


SUNSET. 


16 

ashamed to feel her knees knocking together beneath 
her, she prided herself on nerves of steel. 

Alix’s sailor dress of thick serge had been her sal- 
vation, it was scorched, but it had resisted the flames, 
only the pretty embroidered pinafore was burned, and 
that not wholly. 

“ Dear, dear, bless my heart; now, come, Miss 
Alix; don’t yon? There is not much damage done.” 
Elizabeth was crooning over the poor little hands, that 
ached so fiercely. “ It will be better presently, there 
is only a streak or two scorched, and a bit of a 
blister.” 

“ It is a most miraculous escape,” Frances said 
severely, and she bent and kissed Alix’s quivering 
face. 

“ My dear, my dear, be brave,” said Elizabeth; ad- 
vice which we beseech our fellows to follow, both 
on their account and on our own. “ Be brave, 
and whatever did you go to the fire for, when you 
have been told not? ” 

Out came the story then in raised shrill gasps, 
for Alix knew that the ears were very hard of hearing. 

“ Ellen stuffed Brownie in the fire stead of sticks, 
lie were black all over, but he weren’t gone up the 
chimney. I gotted him out with the poker. It was 
awful heavy, it failed back, and I failed too. When 
Cousin Francie corned I was all fiery. It does hurt, 
Issabissa, it does hurt.” 

“ Yes, yes, my dear, it does hurt, I know; some- 
thing shall be fetched to make you better, only don’t 
cry so loud, be brave.” 

“ I will run and fetch the something to make you 
better,” cried Frances, “ and I will tell mother to 


SUNSET. 1 7 

come to you; ” and our lady of action hurried from 
the room. 

On Mrs. Beaumont’s threshold Frances pulled her- 
self together, and tapped gently: she was consider- 
ate enough to wait for a “ come in ” before she en- 
tered. 

“ Isabel,” she began, her voice was not what she 
intended, it was hoarse and breathless, “ you must not 
be frightened. It is very little, very little indeed — 
she is hardly hurt at all.” 

The occupant of the room was arranging her flaxen 
hair before a cheval-glass, she put down her silver 
brush, and swept round slowly, facing this pale mes- 
senger of evil with puzzled eyes. 

“ Who is hurt? ” 

“ Alix. It is not much. Her hands are a little 
scorched, her pinafore caught fire. Of course it might 
have been serious, but it is not serious, it was put 
out in a moment, there is not much mischief done. 
Isabel, I would not say what is not true, she is hardly 
burned at all.” 

The words were reassuring, the manner did not 
match them. Mrs. Beaumont hurried toward the 
speaker, looking scared. 

“ Where is she ? ” 

“ In my room. Yes, go up. I’ll run down and 
ask for flour, and send for the doctor.” 

A burn, however reassuringly superficial it may * 
be, is a painful injury. When Frances returned to 
her premises she found Alix still crying and trembling 
on the bed, her mother bending over her, stroking 
the fair curls, patting her cheeks, and saying ap- 
pealingly, 


18 


SUNSET. 


“ Allie, dearest, you frighten me, don’t cry.—* 
Elizabeth, I am afraid she is frightfully burned.” 

“ No, m’m, no, it is nothing but a scorch. If you’d 
please to stay up here a minute I’ll run down and send 
Ellen up with some flour, while I fetch over Dr. 
Bellot: I think he’d better see her hands, and then 
we shall be on the right side anyway.” 

“ I’ve sent for the doctor, and here comes Ellen 
with the flour.” 

“ Thank you, miss, it would have been a worse 
thing but for you.” 

Frances was not blind to the fact. She felt that 
with advantage some of her rules and domestic regula- 
tions might be imported into the house; just now she 
held her tongue, watching Alix, who was evidently 
struggling with her sobs, and doing her best not to 
frighten her mother. 

“ You are a very good, plucky child,” Frances 
said energetically; she had dredged the little hands 
thick with flour, and she smiled to see how the patient 
cheered up from interest in her whitened sepulchres. 
There was no reason for Frances to fancy that the 
occupant of the third- floor was a wholly neglected 
inmate of the house; it was charming to watch the 
caressing stroke of her mother’s slim hand on her hair, 
and it was Elizabeth who reminded Mrs. Beaumont 
of the hour, and how that inevitable fixture, dinner, 
was close at hand. 

“ She is comfortable now, m’m, and I’ll take her 
into the nursery, and I won’t leave her if you can 
manage just this once.” 

“ Of course I can manage. Yes, Frances, we 
must go; it is half -past seven,” the speaker glanced at 


SUNSET. 


19 


the jeweled watch on her wrist, “ John has asked Mr. 
Brand to dinner; we mustn’t be late, John is so punc- 
tual.” 

Involuntarily Prances glanced at the blackened 
roll of what could never he a white elephant again. 
Smoked, scorched, ruined, Frances gave it a little 
surreptitious kick with her foot, and smiled a whim- 
sical smile, the meaning of which it was difficult to 
read. At a second thought she stooped and picked up 
the bundle. Then Elizabeth, full of lamentations 
over the carnage, lifted Alix and bore her off to her 
own room. 

“ The dress doesn’t matter a straw, Isabel, no dress 
was ever more useful. If I’d had presence of mind 
I could have used the nursery table-cloth, but one 
never has economical ideas in an emergency.” 

“ I am so thankful to you, Francie.” 

“ I do believe,” said Frances seriously, even se- 
verely, “ that bells are things to be answered, not 
argued about. I say to my maids, ‘ Never mind whose 
bell it is, if its special slave isn’t there, answer it your- 
self.’ People are burned, and murdered, and smoth- 
ered, because it isn’t the housemaid’s duty to answer 
the footman’s bell.” 

“ What a litter this room is in. 'Why didn’t you 
make Ellen unpack your things ? ” 

“ I didn’t think of it. Besides, I like to unpack 
and to know where everything is, when I am settling 
down for a real long visitation, as I am now.” 

“ I am so glad you have come, Frances; ” Mrs. 
Beaumont was not demonstrative, but she put out a 
hand and pressed her companion’s arm. “ I am very 
glad you have come,” she repeated. 


20 


SUNSET. 


The guest, left to herself, fell to reflecting: relin- 
quishing sundry and divers anticipations. Hitherto 
she had not doubted but that her company in Norton 
Street would be warmly welcomed. To be assured 
of the truth of a faith which she had not disputed, 
was disquieting. 

From her heels to her hairpins she was thoroughly 
disquieted, for the Mr. Brand who was to dine in her 
company that evening, was the person whom she had 
come to Norton Street to meet. She had planned 
and intended to meet him, but when the intention be- 
came fact a little sooner than she had dreamed it 
would do, she was fussy and uneasy, as though she 
were a girl in her teens, about to encounter her first 
undeclared lover. 

Years ago, in her own early teens, she had been 
very soft in the heart, and a little yweak in the head, 
about her first declared lover, George Brand. Her 
head had not been so weak as to give way: not at 
all. But when she had had the commonsense to re- 
sist the promptings of the weakness, and to refuse a 
share of his very small cottage, of his very large heart, 
and of his miniature income, she had undergone the 
impressive legitimate pangs of the thwarted. 

Again, when the young gentleman had fallen in 
with her practical suggestion, and had married the 
heiress whom she herself had recommended for his 
mate, she had been both hurt and angry at his obedi- 
ence. 

It had taken her longer than she had anticipated 
to get healed of the sting of the occurrence. When 
her windfall fortune came into her possession she 
thought of George Brand, and she made up her mind 


SUNSET. 


21 


to enjoy her life without any reservation whatever; 
to make as good a match as should come her way, and 
to leave the past alone. 

Frances was essentially a lady of plans, of fore- 
thought. Caution had been her watchword. She 
had carried out all her intentions, save one — she was 
still unmarried, still unappropriated, and she hardly 
knew the reason why. 

More than once she had come to the very brink of 
a settlement, and just as her mind was seething with 
schemes for the future, she herself had swept that in- 
cipient future away. Her jibbing had been full late 
in one or two cases, so that some of her intimate ac- 
quaintances, who called themselves her friends, were 
wont to say harsh things of her behind her back. 

Though she had made no frank inquiries about 
George Brand, yet she was well posted in the circum- 
stances of his life. She knew that he and his wife 
had passed for a happy couple. During the first year 
or two of his marriage, she had seen him once or twice ; 
and, knowing his face well enough to read unhappi- 
ness or happiness therein, she saw he was, at any rate, 
neither aggrieved nor rebellious. She could not think 
other than that he was content. And she was glad, 
yes, she was in her heart of hearts very glad that his 
lines had fallen in smooth places. 

Later the Brands left Devonshire, moving to Lon- 
don, where George had entered into one of those 
mysterious business partnerships with Frances’s cousin, 
John Beaumont, in the city, about which the unin- 
itiated understood so little; but which are expected 
by womenkind to lead, without over-much exertion, to 
mines of gold and hoards of diamonds. 


22 


* SUNSET. 


There was a child of the marriage, a small Frank 
Brand. 

When she heard the name she had been ridicu- 
lously moved. 

Of late she had thought about George’s boy a good 
deal, for he was motherless. She had read of the 
mother’s death in the Times one morning, more than 
eighteen months ago. Twice she had written a letter 
of sympathy to the widower, and twice she had torn it 
up unsent. 

If he was a widower indeed a letter would be of 
no aid to him, and if not it was best to leave it; so 
in silence Frances waited, and waiting fell to dream- 
ing, more than it is wholesome to dream in a practical 
world. 

So much had happened in the eighteen months 
since Mrs. Brand’s death. Her sister’s courtship, 
which had been a dull ceremony for number three, 
had dragged through many months. Frances had 
not anticipated that her sister Constance would marry 
again; she had never entered this marriage into her 
calculations, which were sadly thrown out by the un- 
toward event. 

Frances was fond of her sister, she missed her 
very much. For many months, however, she had 
been absent in mind, so that Frances was prepared for 
the “ absence of body ” which followed. Slowly she 
became conscious that her rank was reduced to that of 
an outsider. 

Five-and-twenty; the age was alarming, to be left 
behind was a new and ungratifying experience; but 
the future opened out a vista of possibilities about 
which Miss Blake had the hardihood to speculate. 


SUNSET. 


23 


She had gone up from Devon to London with the 
bride-elect, and during an interval of the shopping 
raids, she had come across George Brand in Picca- 
dilly. The roar of traffic deadened her voice, and 
blunted her wits. She behaved like a fool; she for- 
got to ask him to dine, she forgot everything which 
she might have said. But she refreshed her memory, 
she renewed her youth, feeling less self-assured than 
she had ever done, even in those far-away early-teen 
days at Sylvester. 

A little later, a week or so before her sister’s wed- 
ding, Frances had suggested her visit to Norton Street. 
She had insisted that she would be lonely at Wayfield, 
that she was sick of the country. She even grumbled 
a little, which was unusual with her, saying that she 
had taken a liking for smuts and racket, and that 
she wished to sharpen her rusting faculties by the 
friction of a Babylonian crowd. She did not say that 
the dumb persistency of a suitor, with whom she came 
in daily contact at Sylvester, was getting upon her 
nerves; though that, too, may have been the case. 
The man was always there, and though, to do him 
justice, he said nothing, she had her suspicions that 
he thought a good deal; it would be best to go, and 
she did go. 

If she liked smuts, then here was her desire, she 
was amid smuts and to spare; the peach-bloom dress 
had had its baptism of grime somewhat prematurely, 
it would not fulfill its destination, fate had taken the 
matter out of Frances’s capable hands. 

To-night, however, the hands were nerveless and 
unsteady, they were not capable; they fumbled over 
the arrangement of their owner’s brown hair, stowing 


24 


SUNSET. 


it in unbecoming, dromedarical bumps upon Frances’s 
bead. 

Alix’s accident had frightened her at the time; 
the effects were serious; she longed for the service 
of her maid, whom she had discarded ; she could never 
have faced that do-without love in a cottage life, 
which had once been offered her. She had been wise, 
she had been prudent, she had been cruel only to be 
kind, — he himself, at last, would frankly acknowledge 
her wisdom. Prudence was not an unpardonable of- 
fense. 

The Blakes had been blessed with a worldly-wise 
mother, who had inculcated principles of prudence 
into her daughters’ systems with their rusks and milk. 
Only a few months before the Brand episode, she had 
gone to the land where worldly wisdom is at a dis- 
count, leaving her two girls little save their heritage 
of forethought ; upon which heritage the younger Miss 
Blake had discreetly relied. 

How well her principles had done for her, after 
all. Of course, in the past there had been a few 
pangs, akin to absolute pain, but now before her spread 
a smooth, clear course. George Brand, had he been 
nothing more, was well off and a good match. The 
poor dead woman had made him — almost— happy. 
Frances insisted on the “ almost ” — there was the “ al- 
most ” in her own case. “ Almost ” should be ban- 
ished in the future, life should be absolute, entire. 

Bah, how plain she looked in mauve, but there 
was no time to change her hideous garb. She turned 
this way and that before the small mirror, as anxiously 
as if she was a fledgling going to her first ball. 

A tall, thin girl was reflected therein, with broad 


SUNSET. 


25 


shoulders which her detractors called angular; as a 
matter-of-fact Frances was a graceful, distinguished- 
looking woman, with plenty of dusky hair; frank, 
keen, deep-set, gray-blue eyes; features molded rather 
than chiseled; firm cheeks, tinted with a healthy 
color. 

She had a quick, individual way of talking, her 
-detractors again accused her of a “ snubby ” manner. 
Indeed she had hardened a little beneath all her pru- 
dence, and she tried to brace her neighbors, should 
they show any sign of a weakness such as she had once 
so successfully combated. 

There was nothing tough about her that evening 
when she proceeded to the drawing-room, she turned 
into the nursery on her way to kiss Alix, who lay 
asleep on Elizabeth’s lap. 


CHAPTER III. 


Happy thou art not, 

For what thou hast not, still thou strivest to get. 

Measure for Measure, 

To speculate about a situation, which you intend to 
meet in a natural, easy manner is not wise. 

Frances had wasted much time in forecasting this 
meeting with George Brand, she had anticipated that 
he might look a great deal, though he might say 
little: the forecast had been pleasing, the reality was 
tame. 

When she entered the drawing-room, Mr. Brand 
was standing by the fire, talking to his hostess. 

“ Here is Frances/’ said John Beaumont, and then 
Frances put her hand into his. 

“ I heard that I was to have the pleasure of meet- 
ing you,” Mr. Brand said, neither voice nor fingers 
were cordial, and he continued his conversation after 
that conventional greeting, as though his memory had 
indeed played him false. 

Nervousness makes none but the extremely youth- 
ful dumb. Frances was overflowing with small talk. 
There was a great deal of ornamental furniture in the 
little drawing-room, so that the mere sprinkling of 
humanity that it contained, seemed in Frances’s eye 
to overcrowd it. 


26 


SUNSET. 


27 


“ This is a cousin of Isabel’s, Captain Bing,” John 
introduced a big fair man, with a pleasant, good- 
looking face, to her. “ He has only just got back 
from Egypt.” 

“ I’ve been back two months, my dear chap. I 
wish it was only just.” 

Then dinner was announced. Of course John did 
not feel that the hand which rested on his arm was 
trembling, but its owner realized that such was the 
ridiculous case. George’s attitude was such as might 
w r ell have calmed her nervousness had she been quite 
sane that night, but the fire and smoke episode had 
upset her unreasonably. She had laid her nervous- 
ness to its just cause before she had eaten her entree, 
and she had also decided that five was an awkward 
number for dinner unless the conversation was general. 

The unconscientious hostess was amusing herself, 
by discussing with Captain Bing childish days which 
they had shared, but of which three of the assembly 
knew nothing. Ho one discussed golden days of long 
ago with Frances. 

If any one would lend her an ear she had lots to 
say, but she durst not cut into the dialogue between 
John and her neighbor, that was of commercial topics 
of which she knew not the a b c. She prided herself 
on intelligence, on assiduously cultured intelligence, 
over and above her worldly wisdom. Isabel was dif- 
ferent, mentally she was a sloth, she idly traded on an 
ingratiating ignorance; her ambitions did not lie in 
the “ brainy ” direction. 

Ho doubt John judged all women by his wife, but 
George knew better than that, it was uncivil of him 
to talk City under the circumstances. 


28 


SUNSET. 


In the first pause between the partners, Frances 
made the necessary effort to obtain her rights. 

“ In the Sylvester days you knew no more of 
John’s mysteries than I did myself, Mr. Brand,” she 
said; she had an unjustifiable idea of hurting him, — 
in those days of her reign, to which she had al- 
luded, he had been lamentably thin-skinned, — by 
the formality of her address, “ now you have 
grown so intelligent that I am depressed by my ig- 
norance.” 

“ From my recollection of Sylvester days,” said 
he, turning round and looking at her. She saw how, 
physically, he was altered now ; there were lines round 
his mouth, faint hollows in his cheeks, he had crow’s 
feet about his eyes, his hair w T as worn away from 
his forehead, and he stooped a little, too. “ From 
my recollection of those times, I incline to think 
City was no mystery to you. I should fancy you 
read the money-market before the births and mar- 
riages.” 

“ I have never glanced at it in my life, I don’t 
know where to find it; ” she protested, a little eagerly, 
not because she was ashamed of her faculty for caution, 
but because — because of the lines, and the hollows, 
and her . Here John spoke, he was a little, en- 

ergetic man, with a decisive voice and a critical eye. 
Men liked him and women were shy of him, he was 
not easy to please, or to interest. 

“ Frances is like my wife, I expect, Brand. Isabel 
hates business. She implies that I am heavy on hand. 
In point of fact I can’t talk shopping, though I 
can talk shop ! I have nothing to say about milliners, 
or story-books, or plays, or my neighbors, which is 


V 


SUNSET. 


29 


worth hearing. No, it is true, I can’t talk to women- 
kind.” 

“ When you say that, you show your want of in- 
formation, John; you are out of date.” 

a Why am I out of date? What do you mean, 
Frances? ” 

“ We are not the frivolous, we are the serious sex 
now-a-days. We were always the hard-working, 
thoughtful section of humanity, but our neighbors 
have only recently recognized the fact.” 

“ Indeed they are serious,” said Mr. Brand, ad- 
dressing his host. “ If their capacity matched their 
earnestness, we poor chaps should be in an awkward 
position.” 

Frances was nettled, though the speaker laughed. 

“ That is a harsh thing to say of us,” she answered, 
lowering her voice; “ earnestness is not a possession 
I despise.” 

“ From a City point of view no possession should 
be despised,” he would not be serious. “ I venture to 
think that a sense of humor, to leaven the earnestness 
of your sex, would be refreshing.” 

“ It is so easy to laugh at any one, or anything; ” 
then she looked him frankly in the face, “ but you 
were never practical, George.” 

The words escaped her unintentionally. She was 
always frank; even now, after all these years, she 
was almost as genuine as she had been when she did 
not hide her motives or her selfish prudence from her 
ardent lover; but in those days she had been a royal 
personage, of whom it is known that they “ can do no 
Wrong.” 

“ He is practical now,” said J ohn, “ long-headed 
3 


30 


SUNSET. 


too, and lie works like a nigger. He’s a keen money- 
grubber, aren’t you, Brand? Hot practical! How 
long ago did you know bim? ” 

“ B. C.” said Frances. “ Before City.” 

George stared at her for a moment. 

“ It was a very long while ago.” His voice ' 
seemed to send the date trembling back to antediluvian 
ages. 

“ Very,” quickly, “ you were at Oxford, and I was 
a grown-up little girl.” 

She spoke of herself deprecatingly. 

“ In those B. C. days I talked athletics, no doubt, 
or green-cheese moon.” 

“ I remember the moon,” said she, gently. 

“ A tiresome topic.” 

“ Hot so tiresome,” she glanced at his profile, “ as 
City. Even then I understood more of moon than of 
City.” 

Here was a lead which surely he would follow. 
He did nothing of the sort, he addressed Mrs. Beau- 
mont, and the thread of the conversation with Miss 
Blake was lost. There was a shade of something 
which she was inclined to call bitterness, lurking 
somewhere about his voice. He had laughed at the 
past, — laughed at it! — But a joke was no infallible 
token of a merry heart. Even bitterness was better 
than laughter, she could understand the former, — she 
could make the bitter sweet. 

How that she knew her subject, she was ready to 
talk moon ; she wanted to discuss the long years which 
she was ready to call lost; but somehow the conversa- 
tion became general just then, and Sylvester was 
whisked out of her reach. 


SUNSET. 


31 


As dinner drew near its fruity end, Frances became 
conscious that she was disappointed. Blessed are those 
who expect nothing. Her expectations had been 
vague, but gigantic. The intangible, worthless satis- 
faction of George’s presence, was the only satisfaction 
that fell to her share. 

Ho, George Brand did not talk green-cheese moon 
now-a-days. He was not the moody, eager man of 
yore. He talked pleasantly, chiefly addressing Isabel, 
and Frances watched him and listened. Then she 
weighed and dissected her preference, — that half dead 
preference which had grown as Jonah’s gourd upon 
small cultivation, — for this commonplace man of com- 
merce. She criticised him, but she did not dispute 
the fact that it was he who had stood between her 
and any possible, probable husband in the past; and 
that, so far as she was concerned, nothing at all stood 
betwixt her and him at this moment. Nothing, — 
nothing, at least, except the narrow wedding-ring 
which he wore on his little finger, and which now 
and then shone in Frances’s eyes, as he manipulated 
his dinner. 

Once George had been modest, easily quelled. 
Once, a look or a word of hers had had an instant, 
unfailing influence upon him. Once, she had amused 
herself by testing her powers, she had elated or de- 
jected him at will. 

It was a lost art, to-night she had mislaid the 
knack. He talked and she listened, and while he 
led the conversation he did not forget to make a care- 
ful and excellent dinner. 

The tale told by that small encircling ring was 
long no doubt; the experiences that it had brought 


32 


SUNSET. 


with it pushed the bygone days far away from him; 
with them Frances had retreated. Ah, if she had 
lost something beside the years, something which it 
might be hard to find again? 

When the womenkind left the dining-room, Isabel 
led the way to the nursery. 

“ It’s a dreadful climb, Frances,” she said, walking 
on ahead leisurely, “ but I want to see how the child 
is, and I must speak to Elizabeth. I was fidgeting 
at dinner, I was so afraid you would say something 
about Alix, and I had not told John.” 

“ Hot told John? ” 

“ Ho, he is the sort of man who scolds over an acci- 
dent, — he doesn’t pity.” 

Frances was preoccupied, or this remark would 
have surprised her. Isabel had so many endearing 
qualities, she was sweet-tempered, good-natured, yield- 
ing, gentle, fascinating, but not critical. Definite 
opinion was not to be expected from her, a judgment 
was not to be expected from her. 

“ So I dressed in a frantic hurry. Look at my 
hair.” 

Mrs. Beaumont wore a soft white dress, which 
made no sound as she moved. Her curly flaxen hair 
was wound in a knot at the back of her head, and 
waved lightly about her temples. Her forehead was 
unusually low, she had finely penciled eyebrows, and 
long thick lashes, softening a pair of beautiful, soft, 
wide-open blue eyes. Her nose was long, giving a 
slight melancholy to the sweet face, but her mouth 
was curved and smiling, with full red lips. She was 
pale and very fair, the turquoise necklet round her 
throat harmonized well with her appearance. 


SUNSET. 


33 


“ Your hair is charming,” said Frances; “ if you 
shaved your head, Isabel, and wore the dress of a 
dervish, I believe you would look your best. You 
always look your best. I don’t know how you do it. 
But there, providence provided you with excellent 
material to work upon.” 

When they reached the nursery Alix was asleep, 
and old Elizabeth, with a lapful of ribbon, lace, and 
snippets, sat beside her cot, sewing by the light of a 
candle. 

The bedclothes were a good deal tumbled, and 
Alix’s bandaged hand was lying on the coverlet. Isa- 
bel bent over her small daughter, and set her surround- 
ings into order ; then she turned her about, and looked 
at the bodice, which was taking form in the stitcher’s 
hands. 

“ Has she been long asleep? ” 

“ Only five minutes. Miss Blake coming in woke 
her. And that there box of goodies, and the note 
from Master Brand which his Pa brought, seemed to 
excite her. I did wish I hadn’t given them to her.” 

“ Will you get that finished by to-morrow night, 
Elizabeth? ” 

“ I can’t be sure, ma’am. I’ve been all of a 
tremble since the fright, not able to sit to my sewing. 
If you could stay here a minute, ma’am, I’d go down 
to my supper, I might feel fit for something after that. 
Cook often forgets me, and I shouldn’t like Miss Alix 
to wake up and find herself alone, she might be fright- 
ened.” 

“ All right, go; never mind the sewing, it doesn’t 
matter. Frances, will you stay and be nursemaid, 
too? I hate my own company.” 


34 


SUNSET. 


The child had stirred at the raised voice, and when 
Elizabeth had gone the watchers sat silent, until she 
settled quietly upon her frilled pillow. Frances’s 
alert eyes roamed about the dim little room, weakly 
searching for a box of goodies, and that with no han- 
kering for a portion of its contents. 

“ Is the little Brand boy a nice child? ” she asked ; 
there was a dirty envelope on Alix’s bolster, messy 
with hieroglyphics, at which she looked. 

“ They dress him so badly,” Isabel whispered back, 
frowning a little at the remembrance of his clothes. 
“ What can poor Mr. Brand know about such things? 
He leaves everything to old Hannah.” 

“ Who is old Hannah? ” 

“ She was his poor mother’s own nurse, I believe. 
The boy looks as if he had come out of the Ark; 
broader than he is long, in a tunic, you know.” 

Frances nodded. 

“ Is he a nice child? ” 

“ He is very dark, I should think he might grow 
up good-looking.” 

“ Ho you see much of him? ” 

“ Yes, he’s often here, he came to tea with Alix 
last week. John thinks he is spoiled, I don’t know 
much about him, I am so often out when he comes.” 

“ Is George fond of him? ” 

“ John says he makes an utter fool of himself 
about him. The boy is all over the house, no one can 
get away from him.” 

“ Did you know the boy’s mother? ” 

“ Yes, didn’t I tell you so? I’m sure I told you 
about her.” 

“ Did you see much of her? ” 


SUNSET. 


35 


“ A good deal. She was so nice, I liked her. 
How sad it was. He has changed so, poor man. I,” 
she was fingering a ribbon with her head on one side, 
“ I don’t thing these mauves match. Mauves are so 
difficult to match. Look, Frances.” 

So Frances looked, contrasting the mauves con- 
scientiously. 

“ They’ll pass muster, Isabel; perfect matches in 
mauves, and perfect matches in men and women, 
aren’t common. I am sure these harmonize all right. 
They’ll get on, in fact.” 

Isabel smiled, but she was not satisfied. 

“ Did the second child live to be christened? ” 

“ I don’t think so. Ho, no, I’m sure it didn’t. I 
remember I was going to a ball, I was dressing when 
John told me. I didn’t go. Poor Gertrude Brand 
was a nice woman ; we were rather friends, we 
two.” 

Frances fidgeted. Was it possible that she shrank 
from hearing praise of a poor dead woman for whom, 
hitherto, she had felt nothing but the pleasing pain 
of pity? 

“ She was the sort of woman,” said Isabel, turning 
her eyes from the disturbing ribbons, and fixing them 
on her companion’s animated face, “ I can get on with ; 
1 am sure you would have liked her. She reminded 
me of you, she dressed well, and she meant what she 
said. She was more impulsive than you are, though: 
but she was so sincere and fresh, even J ohn liked her, 
and he is very difficult.” 

Frances opened her eyes at this observation. It 
never struck her that Isabel might, like many another 
pretty woman, find it wise to be silly, because it was 


36 


SUNSET. 


pleasant to be lazy, more natural to follow than to 
lead. A thoughtful remark from Mrs. Beaumont was 
impressive as the sharpness of a child. 

There was silence a moment; then Frances said, 
interrogatively, 

“ And people thought they were what one calls a 
happy couple ? ” 

“ Yes, he was a nice sort of husband, he went to 
everything, and I don’t think he used to fuss her much 
about anything. I wonder whom he will marry, he 
is a great favorite. Olive Moore would do, of course, 
but -” 

“ But what? ” sharply. 

“ But it was a one-sided thing. She set her cap at 
him, and he did not respond. It was a. sad disappoint- 
ment to her, poor soul, she hasn’t got over it, she has,” 
a soft laugh, “ taken to good works.” 

Frances did not laugh, the words struck a little 
cold in her ears. 

“ I used to know the Brands very well — once,” she 
went on quickly, — the dialogue was whispered on the 
sleeping child’s account, and the hushed voices gave 
a solemn tone to the conversation. “ His people lived 
at Sylvester. His mother was one of our most inti- 
mate friends. When she died and her daughter 
married, — she married a curate, poor thing, a love- 
match, — George left Devonshire: we missed him very 
much.” 

Isabel’s face suddenly lit up with a re-awakened 
thought. 

“ Wasn’t there something between Mr. Brand and 
your sister? I remember now. It was Gertrude 
Brand, herself, who told me. It was very quaint, she 


SUNSET. 37 

took up the cudgels for her husband, and she declared 
he had been disgracefully treated.” 

Frances was silent for a moment, and then she said 
slowly, 

“ I think if there had been anything between 
Constance and George I should have heard it.” 

“ But I am sure of it, Frances. I am always in- 
terested in a love-story, and poor Gertrude Brand was 
vehement about the evil behavior. No doubt she was 
confidante, before she became consoler. Oh, yes, I 
remember the story, he was always at Way field, he 
was absolutely devoted to your sister and she encour- 
aged him, and she absolutely ” 

“ She must have been very young,” broke in the 
other, hurriedly, “ for she married her first husband 
when she was only nineteen. She did not under- 
stand, how could she, a mere child? And you know 
my mother was ambitious. We were brought up to 
think first of an income, then of its owner. Con- 
stance would not have been allowed to marry a poor 
man.” 

“ I can’t imagine any one having the courage to 
defy poor Cousin Susan.” Isabel was alluding to Miss 
Blake’s dead mother. “ I was always afraid of her. 
But I do think ambitious people are tiresome. John 
is ambitious, it makes every one so uncomfortable.” 

Frances was getting entangled in the meshes of 
deception, but she could not allow unjust blame to 
lie on dead shoulders. 

“ If any one was to blame it was not my mother, 
Belle, for she died before we saw so very much of the 
Brands.” 

One of Mrs. Beaumont’s most popular characteris- 


38 


SUNSET. 


tics was her desire to please. She saw that she had 
unwittingly hurt her companion. If Frances was odd 
enough not to be proud of a family conquest, the ac- 
cusation could be swept lightly away. 

“ Pshaw,” she said, smiling, “ boys are always in 
love. I daresay his wife was jealous, and made a 
mountain out of a mole-hill. Here is Elizabeth.” 

Frances was glad of the interruption, the tete-a-tete 
had been interesting, but not pleasing; — the hour to 
come, alas, was neither the one nor the other. 

Isabel sang, and Captain Bing sang, and then the 
two songsters sang together. Frances did not know 
one tune from another, but the rest of the audience 
were musical, and Mr. Brand stood at the piano and 
chose songs and applauded; the piano never ceased 
the whole evening. 

Frances was quiet, but she did not pretend to be 
enjoying herself. She leaned back in her chair, per- 
mitted to indulge in such mild satisfaction as falls to 
the lot of a looker-on. From the crown of her head 
to the sole of the slim ornamental shoe (.which she 
made no effort to conceal) she was graceful, but she 
did not look her best in repose: her varying ex- 
pression was attractive. Just now her face was so 
thoughtful as to be almost glum; her eyes were on 
the ground. 

Once Captain Bing addressed her. 

“ Won’t you join us, Miss Blake, don’t you sing? ” 

“ I know two tunes,” she quoted in answer, “ one 
is ‘ God Save the Queen,’ and the other isn’t.” 

The hearers laughed, and then the singing began 
again. 

“ Behaved disgracefully.” Dour accusation; who 


SUNSET. 39 

had made it? In the first place, who had been so 
hard as to describe her behavior thus? 

Perhaps the behavior had been weak, but had it 
been disgraceful to allow folly to tussle one short 
week with prudence? 

She had been a mere child at the time, a child of 
seventeen, capable of no feeling more robust than 
sentiment. Poor child, who for one short week had 
allowed her favorite friend to become her favored 
. . . friend. Just for a week she had given way to 
his protestations. He had asked, “ Shall I go? ” And 
she had answered, “ Ho, stay.” 

Later, when he had curtained the sunshine of his 
society with a solemn, cloudy, difficult, do-without 
future, the child had exercised her faculty for thought, 
she had gathered prudence to guide her, and had dis- 
missed that unpalatable future and its propounder at 
the same time. 

“ Boys are always in love,” Isabel had remarked, 
and that consolation, that calm platitude, chilled her 
through and through. Better a thousand times to 
be accused of evil behavior, than to be forgiven thus. 

Did George accuse her, or did he excuse himself? 
She had fancied the former, but now he seemed to be 
leading her to recollect that “ boys are always in 
love.” 


CHAPTER IV. 


Was it something said, 

Something done, 

Vexed him? Was it touch of hand, 

Turn of head f 

Strange ! That very way 
Love began. 

I as little understand 
Love’s decay. 

Robert Browning. 

In point of time Frances had been but four short 
weeks in Norton Street. If by living we interpret 
feeling, then the longer portion of her life had been 
crammed into that period : diverse, acute, wide, arrest- 
ing feelings had swayed cautious Frances, as though 
she had been still at the sweet tropical green of seven- 
teen. She had enlarged her mind and her sympathies, 
she had acquired knowledge, she had been happier 
and at the same time more profoundly wretched than 
she had thought possible. 

Frances had had a definite object in coming to Nor- 
ton Street, but she had not said so, even to herself. 
She had no longer such an object. She had gone 
backward instead of forward, she had no longer a 
plan of campaign in her mind, the future was no 
longer in her hands. The future was a blank, about 
40 


SUNSET. 


41 


which she did not speculate, for she had nothing 
whatever to do with the control of it. 

“ How are the mighty fallen ! ” After all, it is 
none save the mighty whose fall is impressive and 
memorable. 

Frances was only quite certain of one thing, and 
the one certain thing was this, she did not want to go 
home; she shivered when she remembered Wayfield, 
and she turned her thoughts from the village of Syl- 
vester. 

Her host and hostess made much of her. She 
liked John, for blood is thicker than water, and John 
had excellences. He was stanch, true, hard work- 
ing, controlled, generous, but his excellences were 
not of the ingratiating type; they could be found, 
but they wanted seeking; virtue that must be searched 
for gets overlooked, unless eyes are patient and sharp- 
ened by partiality. 

Metaphorically, John was always a-bay for the 
moon ; it was a little too bad to marry a face, and then 
to complain because it was not a mind. Had he mar- 
ried the mind, it was probable he would later have 
bemoaned himself for the face. He had no tolera- 
tion, and was stern in his words and ways. His 
partiality for the best of everything was tiresome, be- 
cause he never thought it wise to hide his uncom- 
fortable faculty for knowing what is good, and clam- 
oring for it. 

An ideal as a personal possession is admirable, but 
John did not keep his ideal to himself, he wanted his 
family and his friends to share it. Should they re- 
fuse to do so, he was chagrined and showed it. How- 
ever, the greater part of his days were divided between 


42 


SUNSET. 


the City and his club, so his household had opportu- 
nity to be lax in small duties, and to go their own easy 
way. 

There was a vein of coolness running through the 
man, he was critical; he thought before he felt. He 
did feel as much as his neighbors, but he was not 
quick to feel, his impulses were slow. Children and 
fools (he classed them together) did not appeal to him, 
he fried to be kind to both these lesser sorts of hu- 
manity. He knew it was his duty to see and to. talk 
to Alix each day; descending from manhood’s height 
to childhood’s depths with condescension; but he did 
not dream of allowing the little girl a will or a way of 
her own. 

“ It was a cruel thing,” said he, “ to spoil a 
child.” 

If Alix did precisely as she was told to do, trans- 
gressing no codes of “ excellent manners,” he smiled 
graciously upon her. But, alas, ’twas alarmingly easy 
to bring a frown to his face, and “ Father don’t allow 
it,” became a Damocles sword, suspended over the 
nervous head of the little maiden, handicapping the 
doubtful delight of the long hour, which Alix spent 
daily with her betters in the drawing-room. Though 
she was what a child-lover would call a “ painfully ” 
good child, yet the fact that she was a child, made 
that hour an effort to full-grown intelligences; filled 
as it was by necessity with questions and condescen- 
sions. 

Mrs. Beaumont was very gentle with, and anxious 
to please Alix; she made a charming picture of ma- 
ternity as she played spillikins, or solitaire, or some 
other suitable drawing-room game with her daugh- 


SUNSET. 


4 3 


ter, — if no one else could be found to undertake the 
little girl’s entertaining. In her home circle, Alix 
knew nothing of those enchanting romps, those ex- 
uberant riotous overflows of exultant spirits, such as 
some foolish parents foster, though they know that 
nursery bliss has an acute reaction, and that a romp is 
akin to a roar. 

Alix experienced none of the “ ups ” and 
“ downs ” of the spoiled child ; she was vaguely envi- 
ous of the boy who made her familiar with that epithet 
“ spoiled,” which the authorities invariably bestowed 
upon him. In Norton Street there was no foolish 
person whom unbridled tenderness induced to lie down 
in the dust, for small feet to trample. 

Alix’s discipline had robbed her of some childish 
attractiveness, she was anxious and self-conscious, she 
had learned tact which is unnatural to her years. 

Frances was often to be found in the nursery, it 
was impossible to her not to like a guileless, pretty, 
little scrap of humanity who gave no trouble to any 
one, who was easily amused, and who did exactly that 
which she was told to do. 

If Alix had an unbridled passion it was for Cousin 
Frances, who had come, all unlooked for, in a mo- 
ment, like one of the angels about whom Elizabeth 
talked on Sunday, and who had wrapped out the 
dreadful fire. Who had moreover given Alix a new 
crown, with many a warm, close kiss, and soft word 
besides. 

It had been a disappointment to Frances that she 
had not come across Mr. Brand’s boy during the by- 
gone month. The fault had not been hers, but Fra 
had had a cold, and he had been kept at home. John 


44 


SUNSET. 


said the boy would be coddled into a grave. How- 
ever, upon that very afternoon an invitation had been 
accepted for him, and he was coming to Horton Street 
to take tea with the daughter of the house. 

Alix was not specially elated at the prospect cf her 
visitor. 

“ Issabissa don’t like him very much,” she re- 
marked to Frances. “ She says he is an awful mis- 
chievous little fellow. He does pull my hair some- 
times, but he don’t mean to. Fra’s father,” in 
parenthesis, “ gives him lots and lots of things.” 

Though March had come, aye, and nearly gone 
too, the day was very cold. So cold, indeed, that 
Frances did not mean to go out and face the east 
wind a second time, Isabel and she had been shop- 
ping all the morning. Personally she had shopped 
of late in a lavish manner, that day she had bought 
decorative odds and ends, such ornamental odds and 
ends as had cost a considerable sum. Her conscience 
murmured at her extravagance, but was pacified by 
a reminder that every one knew London was an ex- 
pensive place, and that it was a woman’s first duty to 
look her best. 

Captain Bing came to lunch, and Frances had no 
difficulty in persuading him to take her place, and to 
escort Isabel to the bazaar at Kensington which she 
intended to shirk. He was a persuadable man and 
very good company. Constantly in and out of Hor- 
ton Street his presence was growing almost as in- 
dispensable as that of the fireside arm-chair; and 
Frances treated him much as she treated that soft, 
domestic fixture. 

A tall, fair giant, as merry as a boy, Captain Bing 


SUNSET. 


45 


was useful as well as ornamental. He was an adept 
at extracting amusement from anything that ap- 
proached him. His cousin and he would he happy 
for hours over some innocent frivolity. Over a me- 
chanical toy picked up for a song in the street, over 
the tricks of the poodle, over the education of the 
parrot. They would blow feathers and pick up pins. 
They were like a couple of irresponsible children, save 
that in some essentials they had put away childish 
things. 

“ I was going anyhow, Miss Blake. Maradi is to 
sing, I’d walk ten miles barefoot to hear him any 
afternoon.” 

“ You needn’t do that, Eddie. I’ll squeeze you 
in my vehicle somewhere. But, Frances, I want you 
to come, I want you to spend) and it will be an amus- 
ing bazaar.” 

“ Don’t try to persuade Miss Blake. She had 
made up her mind, I can see.”* 

“ I am not fond of music. At least I only like 
bad music.” 

“ My dear Francie.” 

There was much good music in Horton Street, and 
when he was there George hung about the piano, 
listening to it. His wife had been a first-rate, clas- 
sical musician, and perchance Frances was sore at her 
own deficiencies. 

“ Bad music ! ” Captain Bing chuckled a little. 

“ I have never been educated up to the best.” 
Frances was nervous and she talked rapidly. “ It 
seems that it’s as necessary to be educated in music, 
and in literature, and in every art as in mathematics. 
Why should I listen to sounds, and why should I read 
4 


46 


SUNSET. 


books that I am told I ought to like, but which I don’t 
like? ” 

u Civilization,” said the gentleman. 

“ How can one find time to cultivate artificial taste 
even in our recreations? There should be special 
critics set apart for uncultivated people. For exam- 
ple, what does a gourmand know of the attractions of 
brown-bread and butter? Yet there are thousands of 
people, a majority of people, who would rather eat a 
brown loaf than pate de foie gras , or caviar, or oysters, 
or coxcombs, or even a salmi. Literary or musical 
epicures know nothing about the rustic palate. • Life 
is not long enough to ” 

“ Dear Francie,” Isabel’s blue eyes opened wider, 
“ Eddie thinks you are off your head. She isn’t, 
Eddie. Occasionally when she’s cross she lectures me 
like this.” 

“ I quite agree with her,” said the arm-chair, 
gravely. “ Life is not long enough to be spent upon 
shams. Let us think what we think, and let us say 
so. Instinct is a better guide than artificial public 
opinion.” 

“ You have opened a large question,” said Frances, 
staring at the arm-chair. 

“ Then be quick and shut it,” Isabel ejaculated, 
laughing. “ I hate a large question. Ho one can 
answer it. Don’t encourage her, Eddie ; if you think, 
you get blues. Ho. one should think unless they are 
well paid for it.” 

She frisked away some earnestness which had 
threatened to assail the trio. Later her cousin and 
she went off to the bazaar together; Frances smiled 
involuntarily at their laughter as they left her, it was 


SUNSET. 47 

infectious, and she was not out of tune with merriment 
that afternoon. 

With the smile still about her lips, she ran up to 
the nursery as soon as she was left alone, and found 
methodical Alix putting the most precious of her pos- 
sessions out of reach on a shelf. 

“ Fra is coming and he breaks things/’ she ex- 
plained. 

When a succession of postman’s knocks had thun- 
dered up the staircase, and the guest had arrived, 
Frances understood and forgave the excessive caution 
of the little hostess. , 

“ Here I are, and I knocked myself.” The ex- 
pected guest, Fra Brand, had broken into the room, 
and stood for a moment in the doorway bolt upright, 
while he and Frances stared at each other. He was 
not like his father, he was a manly-looking; child, with 
olive skin, dark hair and eyes. Eyes that shone and 
glowed with life, and were an exact reproduction of 
his mother’s. Frances remembered them. He over- 
came his momentary surprise at the sight of a 
stranger, and ran across to Alix, talking hard; ig- 
noring the duties of society and her outstretched 
hand. 

“ Hannah lifted me, and I did knock loud. Did 
you hear me? I’m much better. Take off my coat. 
Pull harder. Thank you. There is pockets; and 
things in them. Do you like gelatines or jujubes? 
If you don’t cough, you don’t have them. What 
shall we play? I’ve got reins, new reins. They are 
in Hannah’s pocket. Hannah,” he ran to the door, 
shouting lustily, “ Flannah, I want my reins, what 
father gave me.” 


48 


SUNSET. 


A quiet, lean, anxious-looking woman came in at 
that moment. 

“ Say ‘ how de do ’ to the lady, dear,” she urged, 
obviously worried. When nature visits culture, the 
former is no light charge to its superintendent. 

The boy put a little dab of a hand into Frances’s. 

“ Can’t wait,” he said, backing from her kiss, 

“ Alix and me are very busy.” 

And very busy he was throughout his visit, and 
very busy he kept his neighbors; if they were not on 
active service under his commands, they were equally 
active on preventive service. Frances good-naturedly 
laid herself out to be agreeable, but after trotting and 
galloping in double harness with Alix in the nursery 
for twenty minutes, she finally slipped breathless from 
the room, trying to persuade herself that children en- 
joy themselves most alone. 

Agreeable but fallacious doctrine. 

At first Frances had told herself that Fra was “ en- 
chantingly natural.” Before the end of the day her 
appreciation of nature was doomed to dwindle, and 
her respect for civilization, as represented by Alix, 
was to increase. 

To leave the nursery was not to be quit of Mas- 
ter Brand; his father, in the moon days, had known 
what he wanted, and had done his best to obtain 
it; like father like son. Frances had just collected 
her breath and sat down to rest in the drawing-room, 
when voices and footsteps were heard, the door- 
handle fumbled in unsteady fingers, was laboriously 
turned, and then the two children burst into the 
room. 

Alix kept to the rear of her companion, but her 


SUNSET. 


49 


mild eyes shone like stars, and she was smiling 
widely. 

“ I hate nurseries/’ said the boy, coming straight 
to Miss Blake, and looking boldly into her face. “ I 
don’t enjoy myself in Alix’s nursery, it’s such a poky 
little place. May we play with you ? ” 

“ I don’t think,” Frances answered, mollified by 
his preference for her, “ that Alix is ever allowed to 
play in this room. Children don’t play in drawing- 
rooms.” 

“ I plays everywhere. I always plays every- 
where.” 

“ This room is full of things that might be broken 
and spoiled, you see, darling.” 

“ May we play with you ? ” 

He did not want reason, he wanted an answer. 
He put his hand, which illogically argued for him, 
upon her knee, and he looked up smiling into her face. 
A spoiled child is as tyrannical a companion as is a 
fostered passion, and Miss Blake compromised weakly. 

“ Very well, then; if you promise to be good you 
may stay here for a few minutes.” 

“ Oh, we’ll be good,” with the readiness of an 
habitual perjurer. “ I broughted down my reins. 
Cousin Francie makes a good horse, don’t she, Alix? ” 

“ She goes velly fast,” said Alix, politely, “ and 
she’s velly big indeed.” 

“ We can’t play horses here,” protested Cousin 
Francie. “ Look round for yourselves, children, there 
is no room.” 

Again Fra refused to hear reason, if there was no 
room now, it was a thing he himself could make. 
He darted at the silver-table, clearing it rapidly by 


50 


SUNSET. 


shoveling its contents upon the seat of an adjacent 
arm-chair. 

After one glance at Miss Blake’s vacillating face, 
Alix fell to work and assisted him; she knew that 
the house was often turned topsy-turvy when Fra 
came to tea; but horses in the drawing-room fairly 
took her breath away. 

Here was a treat indeed, she had been freely han- 
dling all the forbidden fruit, and now she was romping 
madly; but she could not abandon herself wholly to 
pleasure. Alix’s conscience had been much cultivated 
by an early introduction to Hemesis, and she was the 
only one of the trio who was not surprised when Mr. 
Beaumont came into the room; she had not expected 
to escape scot-free. 

She thought it lucky for Frances’s chances of es- 
cape from punishment that her father was not alone, 
Mr. Brand was with him. Alix had noticed that chil- 
dren were let down easy when strangers were about, 
she knew that under such circumstances crimes mys- 
teriously turned to jokes, at which every one laughed. 
The ways of the grown-ups were past finding out. 

Mr. Beaumont and Mr. Brand stood on the 
threshold and stared, coughing. China and knick- 
knacks had been stored out of the way to clear a space 
in the middle of the room, and there Frances and the 
children had romped, and raised the dust which had 
choked the incomers. Alix’s flaxen curls were wild, her 
face was scarlet, torn lace hung a yard from her frock. 
Frances and she were weighing Fra as a honey-pot, he 
was giving them hints all the while; he took the dis- 
sipation that electrified Alix as a matter of course. 

But now the fun of the fair died. The children’s 


SUNSET. 


51 


playmate, who had been as gay as they, grew dull and 
constrained. Alix half understood, but Fra did not 
know what to make of the change. 

“ The children haven’t done any damage, John,” 
Frances said, answering his strained laugh. “ I just 
had them down here for a little while to amuse me.” 

The honey-pot was rampant, he bawled to Frances 
to go on weighing him. “ He hadn’t come undone at 
all,” he said. 

“ Come here, Frank,” said John, trying to be 
gracious, he had begun to replace a few of his house- 
hold gods, “ you have not spoken to me yet.” 

“ Go and say, how do you do, to Mr. Beaumont, 
old chap,” said his father, anxiously; the games and 
noise had demoralized his son. Fra put a sticky hand 
into John’s. 

“ You are covered with jam, my boy.” 

“We had tea down here, and I spreaded all my 
own, that’s why.” 

“ You had better go and wash your hands.” 

“ Y o. I hates washing. Father, honey-pot me. 
Will you honey-pot me, please? ” 

“ Hush, hush. Brand, that boy’s voice is like a 
penny whistle.” 

“ Father, honey-pot me.” 

When Fra was pressed to wash his hands, he be- 
came openly mutinous. He said that he did not like 
to wash, that be did not like Mr. Beaumont, that he 
did not want to do anything. Finally, he lay flat on 
the floor, and kicked. 

Alix, with her hands behind her, stood looking at 
the sinner, large tears rolling down her hot cheeks in 
silent sympathy. 


52 


SUNSET. 


The master of the house rang the hell sharply. 

“ Send the boy’s nurse here, — eh, Brand? Alix, 
go upstairs at once.” 

It overwhelmed the discomfited father to see how 
promptly Alix fled. 

“ Don’t want Hannah. Don’t want Alix to go 
away. Want to play honey-pots. Will,” raising his 
voice to shriek, “ play honey-pots.” 

Frances and John stood uncomfortable spectators 
of the scene, the former unhappy, the latter dis- 
gusted. Fra had a contempt for criticism, not so his 
poor father, who knelt beside the wriggling figure, 
trying to whisper something, — bribery, no doubt — 
into his ear. 

“ I want honey-pots,” he went on vociferat- 
ing, among wails of despair. “ Honey-pots: honey- 
pots.” 

When Hannah arrived the pandemonium in- 
creased, and the boy was carried off, finally, still cry- 
ing for “ Honey-pots,” in his father’s arms. 

“ Abominable youngster that,” growled John, 
busy tidying. “ Brand will have to pay for all this 
sparing of the rod, some day. I’ll bet you anything 
you like, that he and that nurse are honey-potting 
that odious pickle at this moment.” 

Frances did not bet. 

u I should think it quite likely,” she said; she was 
dusting with her pocket-handkerchief. 

“ Is he not shamefully spoiled? ” 

She nodded, but did not answer; therefore it was 
annoying to find that, when Mr. Brand reappeared, 
John thought fit to put his own words into her 
mouth. 


SUNSET. 


53 


“ Frances will lay any odds that you have been 
honey-potting that boy of yours.” 

“ Well, Beaumont,” deprecatingly, “ you know he 
has been seedy. He is a bit overtired and excited. 
He isn’t really fit for a festivity.” 

“ Lungs not affected, eh, Brand? We guessed ‘ 
you’d been playing honey-pots when the howls stopped. 

I foresee your playing a considerable amount of pater- 
nal honey-pot when the young shaver grows a little 
older.” 

“ Ho doubt,” shortly; “ and I might play a worse 
game. I don’t want' to be associated with an eternal 
parental ‘ don’t.’ ” 

There could be no doubt that George did not relish 
the situation; when he found that the cab, which 
was to fetch the malefactor, had been whistled, he rose 
to take leave, and Frances got nothing but a rebuff, 
for endeavoring to smooth his wounded family pride. 

“ Fra and I made great friends,” she said, gently. 

“ He is so sharp and such a dear.” 

“ Very kind of you to say so. If your philan- 
thropy extends to your friends’ spoiled children, it 
must be boundless. From an unprejudiced point of 
view I like decently disciplined youth.” Then he 
looked with some defiance at John’s smile. “ The boy 
is different, you see, to the general run of children. 

I can’t bully him, even to save myself trouble. A 
man is handicapped, he doesn’t understand gentle ways 
of doing these things.” 

“ My dear fellow, I was joking,” said John, feel- 
ing awkward. Frances had gone toward the landing 
to say farewell to the little fellow, who was heard at 
this moment on his way downstairs. 


CHAPTER V. 


Thou’lt sigh very like, on thy part 
Of all I have known, or can know, 

I wish I had only that Heart # 

I trod upon ages ago. 

E. B. Browning. 

Frances was getting unsociable, Isabel said, sbe 
bad refused to go to the Montgomerys’ crush, and Mrs. 
Beaumont had set out on her way thither alone. It 
was, of course, pouring with rain, but what did rain 
matter when there were cabs to be had? 

Frances thought rain always mattered, it dripped 
and pattered on the window-panes behind her, as she 
sat wool-gathering in the Horton Street drawing-room, 
pretending to be busy at the embroidery upon her 
knee, and it depressed her. 

The gloom, the rain, and the wool-gathering all 
combined to increase the weight upon her mind. She 
had indulged in self-analysis, and it had brought in 
its train mental discomfort. 

Her past life had, perhaps, not been anything com- 
mendable, but at least she had done nothing foolish 
in the neutral-tinted background. She had stitched, 
she had painted, she had drawn with pokers, she had 
seen, too, to the welfare of her humble neighbors, or 
rather she had seen that their welfare was seen to. 

54 


SUNSET. 


55 


She had frivoled, she had enjoyed the science of gar- 
ments, she had enjoyed her social successes. 

To-day she was suspicious of herself, she doubted 
her strength; she had become a prodigal who gives 
what is not wanted, a bad economist who has a vast 
supply of a commodity for which there is no demand. 
And she had lost the knack of enjoying herself, she 
had sickened of amusement. Her hostess did not tire, 
Isabel was a zealous frivoler, she was fully employed 
when her companion was bored, listless, lazy. The 
heart of the play had been cut out, the pith removed 
in Frances’s case, for her love of people was now 
condensed to love of “ person,” and that person him- 
self was not a sharer in the game, and he lived far 
away from the world in a healthy suburb of Baby- 
lon. 

The remoteness of his dwelling-place served Mr. 
Brand as an excuse for refusing his invitations. 

“ I really can’t manage it,” he would say, “ my 
diggings are a Sabbath-day’s journey into the wilder- 
ness.” 

“ Why on earth do you live in the wilderness? ” 
Frances had once thus attacked him. 

“I moved out there on account of health; Fra 
looks a different boy since we got a breath or two of 
air to ourselves.” 

“If Fra' is delicate, why do you stay in London? 
Why not go to the country for good and all? Chil- 
dren are better and happier in the country.” 

“ Fra shall go to the sea if he knocks up,” his 
father had answered, thoughtfully, “ but as long as I 
can I like to keep him with me.” 

“ You used to love the country, George. Why 


56 


SUNSET. 


shouldn’t you both go there ? ” Then he had lifted 
his eyebrows. 

“ And who would do my work? ” he had asked. 

She had not liked to remind him that there was no 
need for work, no need at all to earn daily bread, so 
she had held her tongue; it was a new accomplish- 
ment of hers, brand-new as was her diffidence. 

She often wondered why George had become so 
keen a money-grubber? Why should he, of all men 
in the world, have turned into an anxious untiring 
digger and delver in merchandise? John said that 
his partner was an excellent man of business. How 
odd were the manifold changes and chances of this 
mortal life. 

It was not meet that Frances should be the one to 
remind George that a love of money was a root of evil : 
alas, it was she who had pointed to that root in rever- 
ence, and taught him of its worth. 

It was inevitable that George should come fairly 
often to Norton Street, but could Frances deceive her- 
self into believing that he came to see her? She tried 
her best to do so. When he dined with the Beau- 
monts he lingered longer than need be with John. 
He refused a stall at the Havmarket, he daily played 
whist at his club, enjoying his leisure thus. Like a 
man he had taken no for his answer; like a woman 
she was dissatisfied at his having done so. 

And yet it seemed that he had not forgotten the 
lost days, there was an indefinable something which 
showed Frances that he remembered them. Had not 
this sort of consciousness about him existed, had it 
not been for the lines, and the hollows, and the 
crows’-feet, Frances would long ago have left Norton 


SUNSET. 57 

Street, and she would not have indulged the heart- 
ache. 

He was civil, uniformly polite, hut there was a 
barrier of some sort between him and her. Ah, he 
could not quite forgive her; there had been scenes 
long ago; after the unjustifiable manner of her age 
she had tormented him. 

Might she never atone for it? Had it been un- 
pardonable? Fool that she had been to refuse the 
sharing of a hut, a hovel, or even a disincorporated 
railway-carriage with him, had he suggested such a 
contingency. Fool that she had been to shirk the 
cooking of his stew, and the boiling of his cabbage, 
and the making of her gowns, and even the dreadful 
■wearing of the garments. She was ready now for 
the sacrifice, but the need had slipped away. With 
the “ no ” on her lips, even then Frances had loved 
him, he had been strong and yet gentle, in fact he 
had been an ideal slave. She had not looked upon 
his like again. 

She was at this stage of her reflection, when the 
door was opened and the maid announced, 

“ Mr. Brand, m’m.” 

Ho doubt men know as evitably as women, when 
they are Hace to face with those who appreciate 
them. 

George had never been self-conscious, he had al- 
ways had a knack of forgetting himself, he was gen- 
uine and straightforward. Where he himself was 
concerned, his intuitions were not acute; he under- 
stood plain language best, and he had a manlike way 
of accepting words as an interpretation of the speaker’s 
mind. 


58 


SUNSET. 


He had come to see Miss Blake for a purpose this 
afternoon, and he looked at her wondering whether 
she would serve that purpose. He saw, with a slight 
surprise that she was nervous, the fire-light flickered 
on her face and on her uneasy hands. Her nervous- 
ness must be merely manner, in his heart of hearts 
he had called her strong-minded, remembering that 
she had grit in her. There are some scenes in a man’s 
life which he may not regret, but which he will surely 
recollect; he recollected the whiteness of the firm lips 
which had dismissed him. 

His mind was not harping on that dismissal, he 
knew now that married couples can not live on air. 
Without prejudice he did not think that Frances could 
have cooked a tasty stew, nor sufficiently dusted that 
subverted railway-carriage. 

“ You will want tea,” she said, getting up with one 
of her rapid movements, and ringing the bell. “ Ah, 
here it is. I was longing for tea, it is such a wet after- 
noon.” 

She clung to the weather topic, fussing among the 
cups and saucers as she discussed the forecast. 

When the servant had gone, there was a percepti- 
ble pause. Then he said, 

“ I am so glad to find you alone,” he pulled his 
chair nearer to hers. “ I wanted to talk to you. I 
have something rather serious to say.” 

She was so obviously disturbed by this preamble 
that he broke off, wondering how much she already 
knew of the subject he wished to discuss. 

“ I hope there is nothing the matter,” under her 
breath, not thinking that such was the case, but feeling 
driven to say something. 


SUNSET. 


59 


“ Well, I am afraid things are going a bit wrong.” 
George was very grave. “ J ohn is a capital fellow, 
one of the best chaps in the world,” — we deny the 
faults of our friends in the plural, though we empha- 
size them in the singular, — “ but we don’t agree about 
this particular thing. When he has a bother he keeps 
it to himself, he is reserved : he comes home cross, not 
confiding.” 

Frances tried to think about John, that very 
morning Isabel had been less sunshiny than usual, 
and had growled about her husband. “ John had 
been talking to her. John always gave her a head- 
ache. How glad a woman should be whose husband 
wasn’t clever,” and so on. 

“ I think that I have noticed that John has been 
difficult,” Frances murmured, uncertainly. 

“ Locking up worries is a mistake. If people 
would only peg out their skeletons on lines upon high 
ground, instead of shoving and cramming them out 
of sight in dark holes, they would get rid of them. 
Air, and sun, and exposure kill many unpleasant 
beasts besides bacillus.” 

“ Have you never had a trouble, George, which it 
was impossible to peg out? ” 

“ I never lock up.” 

“ Then you don’t know much about — ” he was 
looking at his own hand, she saw the gold line shining 
in the firelight, and she handed him his tea without 
finishing her remark. 

“ Where is your money invested, Frances? ” 

The suddenness of the question took her breath 
away. Had George no thought beyond wretched 
£. s. d. ? She loathed the subject. They had changed 


60 


SUNSET. 


places in sober earnest, he had come to talk investments 
with her. 

“ It is precisely as it was left to me by my cousin,” 
stiffly, “ all his capital was in Australian banks.” 

“ We have dealings with Australia at the office, as 
no doubt you know. I should advise you to keep a 
sharp look-out on the market, there are disquieting 
rumors from the country. Women like to believe 
what suits them, but don’t pin your faith on Australian 
banks. Do you realize that you are getting abnor- 
mally high interest for your money? ” 

She mentioned the sum with a smile, and he shook 
his head. 

“ It isn’t safe; but, there, that’s your business.” 

After all, he had not come to advise her about her- 
self, for he said no more about banks, but went on with 
his news. 

a We are not satisfied with our agent in Mel- 
bourne; reports that are disquieting have reached our 
ears. In fact, there are several matters which have 
got to be looked into; it is imperative that one or 
other of us should be on the spot. Either John or I 
are going out to Australia.” 

“ Which will go ? I know you will go.” 

“ Yes, I shall go.” 

“ Don’t you care for anything on earth but money, 
George? ” She spoke gently, though her words were 
rough. “ Going away, going to leave Era alone? I 
can’t believe it.” 

He was not offended. Perhaps her words were not 
too strong, they coincided with his mind. 

“ Some one must go. John has his wife, as well 
as his child, to leave.” 


SUNSET. 61 

“ I don’t think either the one or the other would 
be inconsolable.” 

George turned to her, as though she had said some- 
thing heinous, taking her remark with great gravity. 

“ John doesn’t do himself justice here at home. 
He has the everlasting anxiety of making ends meet. 
He doesn’t explain his difficulties, so how can she 
understand? In this matter I have no patience with 
John.” 

“ Men have more patience with their friends’ 
wives, than with their friends.” 

“ Have we? ” he sighed; the idea struck her like 
a knife that his thoughts harked back just then, but 
not to her. He was wanting sympathy, not platitude. 
Her eyes fell. 

“ I beg your pardon,” she said. “ I interrupted 
you. Go on.” 

“ I wanted to talk to you, because I can explain 
things to you. Of course I can’t tell her facts which 
her husband conceals.” 

“ Of course not.” 

“ I am glad you are with her, you seem great 
friends, and she is a good deal alone.” 

What did Isabel know of the word “ alone”? 
Isabel, of all women in the world. Was a woman 
who possessed a child, and a husband, and a divine 
face to be pitied? 

Was there no pity to be spared for a mercenary 
spinster who had no such ties, no flaxen hair and wild- 
rose tints, and sweet innocent smiles about her unap- 
propriated face. 

George must conclude that Frances was as content 
with fate as she tried to appear. 


62 


SUNSET. 


“ If yon have nothing more serious to worry about 
than Isabel’s loneliness/’ Frances retorted, quickly, “ I 
think you waste your emotions. She is as cheery as 
a lark; uniformly cheery.” 

He sat a moment silent looking at her, she knew 
that she was disappointing him, but her tongue, like ! 
her heart, had mutinied and was at large. 

“ I don’t think you were ever observant,” he said, 
thoughtfully; it was evident he was mentally review- 
ing the past. “ A crisis came like a bomb upon you 
then. You only looked ahead when the breakers were 
pointed out — then I recollect you might be trusted to 
avoid them.” 

Frances turned awkwardly away, she was so su- 
premely full of him and of herself that she did not 
dream of any application, save a personal one, to his 
remark. 

“ I was very young when you knew me,” she fal- 
tered, changing color. “ Seventeen is not an ob- 
servant age. It is an egotistical, uninteresting, callow 
age. One ought not to be held responsible for the 
errors of seventeen.” 

George did not defend “ sweet seventeen,” but 
went on, following his train of thought. 

“ I am not more given to seeing into a brick wall 
than other men; but I don’t believe in that agent of 
ours. He’s a shilly-shallying chap. Something must 
be done, and that at once. The boy will get along all 
right, Hannah is an admirable woman, — we had per- 
fect confidence in her, — and children, they tell me, 
never fret after any one. I might,” looking interrog- 
atively at Frances, “ get my sister to put him up, but 
she has a houseful of youngsters, they’d make mince- 


SUNSET. 


63 


meat of Fra; — and she lives down in the Fen-country, 
not a healthy part of the world.” 

“ I shouldn’t send him to Augusta’s,” said Frances. 
a Hers are such great rough boys, and cousins always 
quarrel.” 

“ If it were not for Fra, I should rather like the 
trip.” 

“ But there is Fra, so why are you going at all? 
It is a wild-goose chase! Why should you object to 
being a little done? ” 

“ It is not a question of being a little done. It is 
a serious doing.” 

“ You don’t want money, George, so much, that 
you need hunt the world in search of it.” 

“ I did not go into business to amuse myself,” his 
handsome face flushed just a little as he spoke, the 
subject stirred him. “ And it is my duty to do the 
best I can for our concern.” 

u Commerce is the first duty of a nation of shop- 
keepers. Other ties are not in the running.” 

“ It is my object to make money,” shortly, sur- 
prised and nettled by her words. 

“ So you go to the Antipodes to seek your fortune. 
Why not turn usurer at home and save your passage? 
I don’t know how on earth to pay my bills, so I’ll 
borrow from you. Lend your friends money, money- 
lending pays. If things pay they are honorable, com- 
mendable. The older one grows the more sure one gets 
that it is money that really moves the heart of men.” 

Discussion concerning ways and means between 
George and Frances had, after an eight years’ inter- 
lude, begun again; only nowadays they had reversed 
their sentiments, and had taken different sides. 


64 


SUNSET. 


Had George felt as sore, and hurt, and powerless 
in attacking almighty mammon once as she felt now? 

He shook his head at her words. 

“ Everything but the heart,” he smiled then, and 
handed her his empty cup. “ Ho sugar this time, 
please. How soon will Mrs. Beaumont be back? ” 

“ I have no notion, but I don’t think she’ll be 
late. We are dining early, and going to the thea- 
ter.” 

“ Is John going? ” 

“ ISTo, he is dining out. Captain Bing is taking 

us.” 

George got up suddenly, and walked over to the 
window, looking out at the yard of fog mantling a 
black dead wall. 

“ What shall you do with Fra? ” 

“ I shall leave him at home. As long as nothing 
happens to Hannah he will get on all-right.” 

“ Hannah looks tough enough.” Frances dare not 
outrage the great lady Mrs. Grundy by offering to 
take the boy to Sylvester, and to guard him as the 
apple of her eye; because no matter how she perjured 
herself the astute Mrs. Grundy would know all about 
it. Unless George said “ something,” she must stand 
aside and do nothing. 

“ You have never been out to my dwelling,” he 
said, changing the topic suddenly. “ I want you three 
to dine with me next week. Are you doing anything 
on Thursday? ” 

“ I don’t know.” Smiles broke out round her 
frank mouth, but her heart did not beat true. “ Will 
you wait and ask Isabel? she will know all about the 
‘ anythings ’ we do.” 


SUNSET. 


65 


“ No, no, she can write. I must go in a minute, 
hut before I go I want to say what, in fact, I came to 
say to you. I know you can hold your tongue, I 
know you are safe.” 

Frances bowed her head, holding her breath to 
hear, though his voice was not lowered. 

“ John and I have a good deal of serious commer- 
cial worry on hand. You wouldn’t understand if I 
explained, so I won’t explain, but it’s the sort of bother 
that must not get about. It is essential that it should 
be kept quiet.” 

She made a gesture of assent, he paused for en- 
couragement. 

“ There is no one to whom I could venture to say 
a word, except to you. You can understand that the 
rumor which has given us fright must not be allowed 
to get wind in the City.” 

“ Then the rumor is not true? ” 

“ I am afraid there can be little doubt that it is 
true.” 

“ I have always heard that truth was dangerous to 
commerce.” 

Her censure, which once would have laid him in 
the dust, did not affect him; her opinion, which once 
guided his thoughts and actions, as a strong hand 
guides a blind man, was nothing but a signpost now, a 
thing to glance at, and to use if it be necessary. 

“ You are awfully down on trade, if you knew 
more you might find honor even among thieves. But 
I don’t want you to add columns, or to stoop to con- 
quer. I only want something which most women are 
generous with : I want — help.” 

Only help ! She was ready with it, and she said so. 


66 


SUNSET. 


“ What help can I give you? ” 

“ Help in a round-about way,” he was pacing up 
and down the room now, and the whole story came out 
rapidly. Trances sat with her eyes on the fire which 
flickered up now and then, bringing out the lights 
and shades of her copper-colored dress; and listened. 

“ Things are going uncommonly badly with us. I 
am not bothered about myself, Fm all right, but I 
worry about these people here. Whole lives get hashed 
for want of an onlooker, who is sufficiently interested 
in the game to call out an occasional halt. The Beau- 
monts ought to pull in a bit. She gets rid of a lot of 
money. Frocks and hats, you understand, he told 
me about it. A couple of hundred pounds is more 
than she should spend in annual fig-leaves. Their in- 
come is small, she hadn’t a penny; and he started with 
a lump of Oxford specialities, back bills, to hamper 
him. The little house lets them in for a big rent. 
I want him to let the house for a year, and take her 
out of town; but, no, he won’t do that. He won’t say 
a word to her, he only abuses life when we discuss the 
idea, and gets the blues. Of course, if you let a woman 
like she is get a comfortable seat on the social whirli- 
go-round, she enjoys it too much to get down of her 
own accord. And when she has been at it a bit the 
pace gets to seem slow, and she wants more stoking, 
so as to go faster and faster, and to keep up the ex- 
citement. Stoking whirli-go-rounds in Babylon is 
ruinous, and if you don’t want a regular all-round 
smash the lady had better dismount. Do you see 
what I mean? I want you ; you, yourself, to use all 
the wile you know to get Mrs. Beaumont off the whirli- 
go-round.” 


SUNSET. 67 

“ You want my influence. It is very little in such 
a mighty matter.” 

“ It struck me that you might get her down to 
Sylvester. I suppose you’ll soon be going home.” 

“ When do you start? ” 

“ On my way here I called at the office and chose 
my boat. She sails the end of the month.” 

Her mind flew to her home, to the gabled house 
with its trim garden, to the wide outlying meadows 
with the brawling rivulet, the Sylve, dashing by them 
on its way down the valley, to the picturesque village 
of Sylvester about the gates of Wayfield, to the gray 
church and to the vicarage, lastly to the occupant of 
the vicarage. It was a crooked world. She did not 
want to go back. Home, he had called it. 

Many a wrong and its curing song, 

Many a road and many an inn : 

Room to roam, but only one home 
For the whole world to win. 

When George spoke of home to her, she was in- 
clined to cry, she had never known one. 

“ I shall be going to Wayfield, I suppose, some- 
time.” 

“ Make the sometime now,” he urged; “ take Alix 
and her mother.” 

“ The house is shut up.” 

“ Have it opened.” 

“ I will,” she liked his vehemence. “ I will have 
it ready, and I will talk to Isabel.” 

“ And you’ll be careful what you say about us 
City thieves, won’t you? John says she would tell 
people anything she knew. I suppose he knows her 
best, but women, I have found, can and will make 


68 


SUNSET. 


any sacrifice for their own, if they are shown the good 
of it.” 

Had Frances taught him of sacrifice? She had 
not done so of women’s self-sacrifice. How had he 
learned the truth, which sounded so good in her ears — 
just for a minute? 

She would be different; he did not see the ex- 
cellence of her gowns, nor appreciate her wit; and 
she was not worth his regard, — she called it regard. 
She would go back, back to Wayfield, and put three 
bands about her heart, as the tailor did in Grimms’s 
fairy-tale which she had read to Alix. He had put the 
bands there, bands to keep his heart from breaking. 
But her three bands were to be of pride, unlike those 
of the humble tailor’s. 

Until Mrs. Beaumont came back, George sat on, 
talking in so friendly and good-humored a strain, that 
Frances had no leisure to remember anything, but 
the present. However, during the performance of 
the burlesque, to which they went that evening, she 
had plenty of time to look back, and to look for- 
ward. 

She would do all she could about the whirli-go- 
round, but she did not want to go to Wayfield until 
April; — the country was at its best in April. 


CHAPTER VI. 


For auld lang syne, my dear, 

For auld lang syne, 

We’ll tak’ a cup o’ kindness yet, 

For auld lang syne. 

Burns. 

Mrs. Beaumont was standing by the flower-table 
in the Norton Street drawing-room, arranging some 
tall fair lilies in a high vase. Her lips were pursed 
up, her blue eyes were anxious, but admiring, she 
stood with her head thrown back, looking as fresh and 
sweet as any of the flowers before her. 

“ The most beautiful flowers are always the most 
difficult to arrange, Frances.” No answer. “ Don’t 
look so glum, it is quite depressing. Did you get a 
sheaf of Lady-day bills this morning? You did. Ah, 
that is the reason you are lecturing on economy this 
morning.” 

Frances tweaked a little flaxen curl, that lay close 
against the nape of Isabel’s white throat. 

“ But it is a disgrace, Belle. Lilies in March ! 
Five shillings apiece, with luck they’ll live three days.” 

“ Buying flowers, my dear, is less expensive than 
growing them. You pay your gardener thirty shil- 
lings a week, and you give him a cottage, then you 
pretend your lilies grow wild, and cost you nothing.” 


70 


SUNSET. 


“ I don’t pretend it.” 

“ No, no, you pretend very little; you are not a 
humbug. Your lilies shall cost you what you like, 
if you’ll leave off lecturing. My lilies cost me a 
‘ thank you,’ they were as cheap as dirt, you see; Ed- 
die gave them to me.” 

“ When does Captain Bing go back to his regi- 
ment ? ” 

“ Why do you ask, Frances, as I have not to pay 
for his passage ? ” 

She glanced over her shoulder at her grave in- 
terrogator with a laugh. Her delicate face and fair 
head looked very fragile, emerging from the rough 
tweed gown she wore. The perfect lines of her figure 
seemed to shape the heavy dress, and to an uninitiated 
mind it looked a frugal form of raiment enough. 

Mrs. Beaumont had a genius for self-decoration, at 
any rate she had that infinite patience over the plan- 
ning of her clothing, of which genius is said to consist. 
When she found herself burdened with an unoccupied 
hour, she could make herself happy over the planning 
of a gown, the fitting of it with a bonnet, and the ar- 
ranging of petty extremity detail. 

Her good looks w T ere of the kind that are undeni- 
able, and therefore she did not insist on a constant 
recognition of her favors, as less beautiful women so 
often do. But she was proud of her taste, she was 
inordinately proud of her dressmaker. 

She would not willingly have returned to the 
Garden of Eden had there been no requirement for 
fig-leaves. 

Economy to such a woman is a form of torture to 
which it is hard indeed to submit. 


SUNSET. 


71 


“ Because,” answered Frances, coming forward to 
smell at the gift-horse, now that there was no ser- 
mon to be compounded of the fragrant blossoms, “ I 
thought Mrs. Bing, that is to be, might be pining in 
India.” 

“ Oh, that,” said Isabel, cracking the juicy stalk of 
a lily, and skillfully inducing a stoop in the back of 
the proud flower, “ that is off.” 

“ Whose fault? ” 

“ Mutual, I fancy.” 

“ What a fallacy the proverb is.” 

“ What proverb? ” 

“ The proverb which says that ‘ absence makes a 
heart grow fonder.* Absence makes the heart more 
tolerant, perhaps; I don’t think it has any other ef- 
fect.” 

“ Eddie never really cared, he was ‘ let in.* ” 

“ How abominable of him to say that.” 

“ He only said it to me. He would not for- 
give me if he knew I had repeated it. I have seen 
so much of him, he used to come to us for his 
leave.” 

“ But I thought he had been in Egypt, or in India, 
for years.” 

, “ So he has; but I mean long ago; before I was 

married he came to stay with us at home. He always 
foresaw that I should marry John. There were such 
a lot of us, you see, and we were rather poor, too. 
Mother did not think it was fair on the younger ones, 
for us elders to wait long before we married. She 
thought John very clever, every one said he would 
make his fortune.” 

These explanations did not altogether gratify 


72 


SUNSET. 


John’s cousin, combined as they were with the ex- 
pression, “ let in.” 

John is extremely clever.” 

“ Oh, yes, of course. Clever people tire me; 
sharp, superficial people are best company. There, 
don’t frown, for you are a smart sort of superficial per- 
son yourself, and that,” with a caressive pat on 
Frances’s shoulder, “ is one of the reasons why you are 
such a dear.” 

“ You were a baby when your knot was tied,” 
knitting her brow. 

“ Nineteen, but I wasn’t a baby. I was precocious 
enough. I knew men marry good looks, and I knew 
good looks were to marry well. I was told I must 
make a good match. I hadn’t a sou of my own, and 
I was expected to find a husband promptly ; then J ohn 
turned up. He wrote me poetry; I didn’t understand 
it, but I knew he must be clever. I had read of mer- 
chant princes, no other prince was near! John had 
such good interest ” 

“ Interest is not any good,” his cousin broke in. 
“ John works very hard, it is not his fault if he is un- 
successful.” 

“ Then he is — unsuccessful.” John’s wife had 
seated herself on the arm of a chair, and she lifted her 
large soft eyes to Frances. 

“ He is not successful.” 

“ He told you so? He tells me nothing,” her 
eyes had clouded. 

“ George Brand came yesterday, it was he who 
told me.” 

“ Are things really bad? ” 

It was almost a relief to Frances to be found out, 


SUNSET. 


73 


she was a poor conspirator. Of course, she had not 
intended to betray confidence, but she knew how diffi- 
cult it would be to lock Isabel’s crocodile purse, with- 
out giving an adequate reason for so doing. 

Some women can easily be induced to close their 
hand where their neighbor is concerned, and to feel 
no awkwardness about the action; but Isabel was gen- 
erous, she played ducks and drakes with her pennies 
as well as her pounds, spending, in a small way, of 
course, was a delight to her. 

“ It is a profound secret. I have been clumsy to 
betray it.” 

“It? What? You have betrayed nothing dra- 
matic.” 

The journey to the Antipodes seemed dramatic 
enough to Frances, it was over that her voice sank. 

“ George said there were flurries in their business, 
that J ohn refused to worry you about. He said there 
were a crop of bothers, from the knowledge of which 
John was trying to save you.” 

“ John never tells me anything,” said his wife 
again; Frances was setting her husband in a be- 
coming light, but she would not look at him thus; 
“ he does not think I am to be trusted. Yesterday 
he inferred politely, and in confidence, that I was a 
shocking housekeeper, but that complaint is ancient 
history.” 

“ Poor John, it must be difficult to bear all the un- 
certainties alone. I wish he would speak out.” 

“ My dear Francie, I don’t suppose men are in the 
habit of worrying their womenkind about their pro- 
fessional mistakes. We are taught to look upon them 
as immaculate.” 


SUNSET. 


u 

“ Yon are angry with John.” 

“ Imagine my presuming to he angry with J ohn! ” 

“ Don’t be angry, dear. George Brand said, that 
we women are always willing to make any sacrifice 
for our own. lie said a beautiful, decorative person, 
of whom he knew, would wear rags and tatters to help 
a man whom she loved. He said you, Isabel, yourself 
would do it.” 

She had gone back to her lilies, and was touching 
and rearranging them. 

“ If it is necessary, I must wear rags and tatters. 
Mr. Brand is flattering, more flattering than John, 
who grumbles at me to his friends.” Poor Frances 
found she could not shield her cousin, a scapegoat 
there must be. “ John forgets that I dress Alix out 
of my allowance, and that Elizabeth is always at work 
for me; she is thrifty as a German hausfrau .” 

She spoke with irritation, Isabel was so amiable 
that a ruffle upon the surface of her mind betokened 
a mighty stir beneath. 

“ Isabel, I had no right to breathe a word of this, 
but I do think if men could be induced to talk of their 
failures a little more freely, their womenfolk would 
know what to be at, and would pinch when pinching 
is needed.” 

Pinch ? I am always pinching. Look at this tiny 
house.” 

Miss Blake looked critically round her. 

“ Leave it, Isabel,” she said, “ bring Alix down to 
Wayfield. Come home with me. Think, how cheap ! 
You could wear out your old frocks. I lay awake 
last night and planned your visit out. Alix will love 
the country, and you shan’t be bored.” 


SUNSET. 


75 


“ Frances, you are kind, but I hate the country. 
I get bored, — ah, the mud and the stifling lanes at 
Sylvester, I can picture it! Why are you planning 
at all? Economy is the cry, I suppose. Pshaw, 
economy is doing without for we women, and only 
growling and grumbling for men. Why doesn’t 
John give up cigars and take to flannel-shirts? 
When he does that,” she laughed, shrugging her 
shoulders, “ and tells me so, it will be time for me to 
set about paring my pennies, and giving up the 
house.” 

It would be strange, indeed, if such an easy-going, 
sweet woman as Isabel should decline Frances’s in- 
vitation, and wreck Mr. Brand’s intention. Frances 
had not done any good, she had only stirred up John’s 
wife against him: — alas, that conjugal indignation is 
easily stirred, — and she had betrayed confidence. 
Women, it has been said, will keep their own, though 
not their neighbor’s secret, in contrary distinction to 
men who let their personal cats out of bags, but pre- 
serve the confidence of a friend inviolate. 

If Isabel could not be led she must, assuredly, be 
driven. The only thing that George desired of 
Frances must be accomplished. 

“ Belle, I am worrying you, I know; but isn’t it 
best to face a situation and to discuss it? If George 
had said to you what he said to me, you would have 
been as concerned as I am.” 

“ More concerned, dear,” said Isabel, making an 
expressive grimace, “ because the situation is mine , 
not yours.” 

“ You don’t mind my sympathy, do you? You 
think I meddle.” 


76 


SUNSET. 


“ Come out, Francie, I must go to Woollands this 
morning. We can talk out of doors.” 

“ While we are shopping? I can’t. Let us de- 
cide something now, I want to tell you what I planned. 
John must be wretched, it would be an enormous re- 
lief for him to find out a simple way of saving money. 
Don’t you see, you might let the house for the season? 
I think Constance and James would take it; in her 
last letter she says that they want a furnished house 
when they come back. I will write to her at once. 
If the house is off your hands, Alix and you can come 
to Way field.” 

“ And John? ” asked his wife, with a shake of the 
head. 

“ John can put up at the club, or at his old rooms. 
Of course, there is always some unpleasantness over 
saving money. John must be sacrificed; but he can 
run down to Devon, whenever he can get away.” 

“ Is that his plan? ” 

“ Ho, no, mine. He and I have never mentioned 
economies, or difficulties. He may put his veto on my 
ideas.” 

“ John won’t object, but I object. I really couldn’t 
go out of town in the spring.” 

“ But,” began Frances, — nothing could have been 
more ill-opportune at this moment than the arrival of 
an outsider, just when the parley was unsettled, but 
Captain Bing was ushered into the room, and the 
speaker was obliged to swallow her argument. 

“ What is the matter? ” said he, looking from one 
woman to the other, and addressing Miss Blake. 

“ Nothing,” said she, wondering at his woman-like 
fleetness of perception. 


SUNSET. 


77 


“ Something serious/’ said Mrs. Beaumont, in the 
same breath. “ ¥e two were on the point of a tiff. 
For the first time in my life, Eddie, I have been say- 
ing ‘ no ’ instead of ‘ yes ! 9 It was an effort, and it 
made her cross. She won’t come out, and I have an 
appointment; I’ll go and put on my hat, and you shall 
take me instead.” 

“ It’s a nicish morning,” said he, “ a walk will 
blow away the cobwebs.” 

Isabel put both hands up, and pushed back the 
light rings of hair from her forehead. 

“ My head aches,” she said, When she had gone 
Frances only stayed a minute or two with Captain 
Bing; he, too, was not good company that morning, 
and he answered her remarks without his usual genial 
laughter. 

The law-giver was ruffled, she had not foreseen 
any opposition to her scheme, she had arranged it at 
George’s suggestion. It would be by no means un- 
mitigated gratification, to go home with a bored friend 
who wanted amusement, in the present state of her 
existence. She was going because it was the will of 
the King: she felt as a general might feel who must 
report defeat to his monarch. 

Wayfield was dear to Frances, but country life has 
its drawbacks. There was a neighbor at home whom 
she had not treated over-well. He had not grumbled, 
it was true; but her conscience pricked her. He and 
she were, of necessity, thrown together, but beyond 
that neighborly necessity, just for a few months, she 
had seen a vast deal of Mr. Hardacre, and when the 
inevitable crisis had come, she knew that she, herself, 
had brought it about. 

6 


78 


SUNSET. 


Satan finds some mischief still 
For idle hands to do. 

When the author of the mischief can leave it be- 
hind her not much inconvenience follows; but when 
the mischief is forever in sight, in hearing, jostling 
elbows with its perpetrator, then its aspect changes; 
it becomes an old man of the sea, a burden, a gene. 
Frances was out of spirits and a little out of humor; 
so the wise woman made her way to the nursery, be- 
cause the child there would not recognize her mood, 
and it would be thus the easier to change. 

How should children judge false smiles from true? 
Intercourse between the grown and the growing can 
not be natural, nor on a level. It is the stooping 
of the mind, and the elevation of the matter, the 
strain of it, that tries the nursery governors and 
guides. 

The Horton Street occupants of the third story 
were always pleased to see Miss Blake. Alix had 
learned to amuse herself in her own little way, but 
she liked best of all to have a comrade. She knew 
that her first duty in life was to take care of her 
pretty clothes, that her second duty was to hold her 
tongue when her elders were speaking, or writing, or 
reading. She knew her duty, but that was no reason 
for liking it; with Frances as director, duty was dis- 
carded, and Alix did and said much what pleased 
her. 

To-day Elizabeth was overwhelmed by her art, 
for she was turning a sow’s ear into a silk purse for 
her mistress’s wardrobe, and the work was stiff. 
Alix was picking up snippets, and watching the la- 
borer. 


SUNSET. 79 

“ Elizabeth, how pale that child is. Surely she 
ought to go out.” 

“ Surely she ought,” Elizabeth sighed, “ but I 
haven’t got the time to take her.” 

Alix’s exercise was irregular, and her legs were 
consequently given to ache when she patrolled the 
pavements with a long-limbed comrade, who had er- 
rands to do, and not much time to spare. Her face 
lengthened at Erances’s words. 

“ Don’t care about a little walk,” she said, politely, 
“ it’s dinner-time.” 

“ Hot yet, Alix, it isn’t twelve o’clock.” 

“ Anyways I want my dinner.” 

u Won’t you come out with me, Alix? ” 

“ I will, — but I don’t care to.” 

Frances was unreasonably hurt, her treats seemed 
universally unacceptable. 

“ Would you like a drive, Alix? Will you come 
in a hansom? ” 

Alix dropped her snippets on the ground, sat her- 
self flat on the floor, and began to take off her shoes. 

“ Put on my new velvet coat, Issabissa,” she said. 
u I’m going driving long of Miss Blake, ’mediately.” 

While the velvet coat was being donned and the 
fair curls brushed out, Frances talked. The Way- 
field visit must be fixed before the Thursday outing; 
Elizabeth and Alix must be roused into backing-up 
Erances’s invitation. 

She sketched out a seductive picture of Sylvester 
for Elizabeth, and then she threw farm-yards and 
flowers and hayfields lavishly upon the fore-ground, 
till Alix’s pale eyes glowed. 

“ I have asked mother to bring you down there, 


80 


SUNSET. 


Allie, I want you to come, and to stay a long, long 
while with me. It would do you then all the good 
in the world to spend the spring in the country. Alix, 
between us, we must persuade mother to say ‘ yes/ 
and to bring you.” 

“ Mummy always says ‘ yes/ father says ‘ no.’ He 
generally says ‘ Ho, Alix, certainly not! ’ ” 

“ And the woods are so lovely, Allie, all white 
with anemones, and the blue-bells push up tall through 
the moss, hundreds and thousands of them, nodding 
when the wind blows; and just over their heads a 
lovely blue mist like a cloud. And you can make 
great balls of the sweet cowslips, and fill all your 
nursery with primroses. There are flowers every- 
where.” 

“ Is it heaven? ” awed. 

“ Oh, not heaven,” Frances drew in rather shame- 
facedly, “ of course not heaven. My home is in 
Devonshire, not,” with a whimsical twist of the mouth, 
“ in heaven.” 

Alix turned away from the looking-glass. 

“ I think I’ll stay indoors and pack,” she said 
briskly. 

“ You can’t pack yet; nothing ,” solemnly, “ is 
settled.” 


CHAPTER VII. 


I have kept, as others have, 

The iron rule of womanly reserve 
In lip and life till now. 

Mks. Browning. 

Upon Thursday morning three telegrams passed 
between George Brand’s suburban villa, the Limes, 
and the little house in Horton Street. 

The first of the series ran as follows: 

“ We find that we can dine with you to-night after 
all. Can you have us? — Beaumont .” 

The second telegram was to this hospitable effect: 

“Delighted to have you. Come early , dine and 
sleep. Bring Alix. — Brand.” 

The third was a pliable last: 

“ Expect us all four-thirty. — Blake.” 

Since his wife’s death, George had given up en- 
tertaining of any sort in his own house and, conse- 
quently, the establishment was thrown into excite- 
ment at the news that two ladies, a gentleman, a 
child and a nurse were to arrive at the Limes that 
afternoon. 

There was no grumbling at the prospect, among 
81 


82 


SUNSET. 


the servants it was felt that things were not going 
altogether comfortably, and in such a case a change 
of programme is a relief. The master of the house 
dined out a good deal at his club; the household was 
stagnant for want of work; stagnation is not whole- 
some, and every one said that “ every one,” save the 
speaker, “ wanted more to do.” 

The nursery pair did not want work, they were in 
no danger of stagnation. Hannah might now and 
again have relished an idle day, had there been one 
among the new servants with whom she would have 
trusted “ Master Fra.” 

That Thursday morning, as was his wont, Han- 
nah’s master came up to his son’s quarters after break- 
fast, to join for a few blissful minutes in the boy’s 
games. Poor Fra had a way of rather damaging the 
joy of the game by the anticipation of the end. While 
George romped, between the bursts of laughter, Fra’s 
lips would fall suddenly, and he would cry, 

“ ’Tisn’t time to go, daddy — ’tisn’t time to go.” 

When the actual moment of departure came, the 
time that he must go, George would invent pretexts 
for slipping away. All these pretexts Fra recognized 
as such, and fought against them lustily. Youth will 
fight, until the inevitable time comes, when it has 
learned the fallacy of mutiny against the “ must be ” 
and the “ are ” of life. 

That morning George had no need to invent any- 
thing, the news which he brought took the sting out 
of the parting. Fra was eminently sociable, and as 
soon as he heard Alix was expected he went off to his 
toy-box, to get out the choicest of its contents for his 
guest. Perhaps he was no more generous than the 


SUNSET. 


83 


little girl, who had hidden her best-beloved from his 
destructive hands, for in his nursery no husbanding of 
treasure was necessary, pleasure there grew lavishly, 
like the jam and cake: if one should fail another took 
its place. 

It is so easy to give of that which costs us nothing. 

“ I must go, Fra,” said George; the wails which 
had to be consoled had their palliatives. 

“ Good-by, daddy,” cheerily, with his head in the 
box. 

Mr. Brand turned away, and lowering his voice 
addressed Hannah. 

“ They will all be here by the four-thirty, Han- 
nah,” he said. “ You will see that everything is all 
right and comfortable for them. I have given 
Williams directions, but he is new to his work, so will 
you see that things are,” he paused, Hannah looked 
grim, and sad, and unresponsive, “ as they used to 
be?” - 

“ I will do what I can, sir; ” she wanted to say 
more, she had plenty to say, but her race has a silent 
code as unreasonable as school-boy honor. “ One 
isn’t thanked for interfering, sir. Servants are not 
what they used to be. It is my place in the nursery, 
you see, sir.” 

Mr. Brand was puzzled and disappointed. A 
woman would have understood that she was expected 
to ask questions, he merely understood that Hannah 
was cross, and he tried to smooth her down. 

“ The boy loves having a child to play with, Han- 
nah.” 

“ Master Fra doesn’t fret for nothing; except once 
in a way when you have gone, sir, in the morning.” 


84 


SUNSET. 


“ I suppose he soon forgets, eh ? ” 

“ Like a child, sir, is like a man. He forgets off 
and on; but a child’s memory is shorter both ways 
than a man’s.” 

His father looked down at the dark bobbing head, 
and sighed. Fra was absorbed in his occupation, 
nevertheless Mr. Brand went a step nearer Hannah 
and again lowered his voice. 

“ I am afraid, in fact I am pretty sure that I shall 
shortly be called abroad, on business. I shall have 
to leave home for some time. Hot longer, you may 
be certain, than is necessary, but I shall have to go.” 

“ How soon, sir? ” 

“ At the end of the month.” 

“ Where to, sir? ” 

“ Australia.” 

“ Oh, never, sir? Dear, dear! ” 

“ I have the greatest confidence in you. I wouldn’t 
leave home unless I knew that he would be in safe and 
careful hands. I trust you, Hannah, as though you 
were myself. His mother could not be fonder of the 
boy.” 

His voice shook a little in speaking, he was look- 
ing searchingly into the lean troubled face, and try- 
ing to cheer her. Hannah was too faithful a servitor 
to be easy-going. 

People who mean to do their duty are chary of 
undertaking more responsibility than it is certain they 
are capable of bearing. The shirkers, the thriftless, 
feckless, unreliable persons are as ready to make, as 
they are to break, their easy promises. Hannah, poor 
woman, turned pale as her master was speaking, and 
her eyes filled with tears; she did not speak. George 


SUNSET. 


85 


was used to slip away from a weeping child; now 
his nurse was crying at the idea of losing him. 

“ Come, come, Hannah, I shall be back in the 
autumn.” 

“ To be sure, if you are alive, sir, you’ll be back. 
But there will be many a minute, and many an hour, 
before you come. And I’m to be master and mother 
both, when I’m nothing but an old woman and a 
servant.” 

“ You wouldn’t leave Fra, Hannah? ” 

“ Hot while I’ve my life and my reason. But a 
wooden mother is better than a golden father, as the 
saying is, sir; and flesh and blood comes before money- 
making, that it does.” 

“ I must be off, Hannah, or I shall miss my train; 
when I come back I will see you, and we will have 
a talk. Good-by, young shaver; shall I bring Alix 
back a doll from town ? She won’t care for your stable 
of horses, and your engine-house. There, there, that 
will do. Good-by.” 

Mr. Brand bustled himself out of the nursery, and 
went off to the station with a heart heavier even than 
was its wont. He was a man whose mind inclined 
him to do the thing that was best and wisest, not the 
thing that he wished. He had pondered the City 
situation, he had examined it from all other points 
of view than that of his personal feeling. It was 
clear that if a serious, financial calamity was to be 
warded off, one of the partners must go to the 
Antipodes. The question was, which partner should 
it be? 

I suppose most men think and speak of women as 
they find them, naturally forming judgment upon 


86 


SUNSET. 


experience, rather than upon hearsay. George never 
set himself up as a judge, if it was true that he had 
been badly treated in his youth, he bore the male- 
factor no grudge on that old score, though he had a 
hot hurt feeling, which goaded his mind, when it 
turned to the reason why he must set his energies to 
the amassing of £. s. d. 

This need of his might be mistaken; its owner, 
himself, hardly understood why a Briton, who may 
not desire to use his freedom, must yet feel that it is 
his. Yes, there were reasons, delicate, intangible rea- 
sons why money could cool that hot streak of bitter- 
ness, against which George now and again struggled 
in vain. Though, perhaps, he of all men had no 
reason to respect a petticoat overmuch, their weak- 
nesses having been made apparent to him more than 
once in his life, yet he did respect them for that very 
want of strength. He made enormous allowance for 
them, and was very tender toward, and thoughtful 
for them. 

For the purposes of friendship, ay, and of com- 
panionship, he, nowadays, turned almost exclusively 
to his own sex. 

Wives were to be cherished, but they sometimes ' 
wanted looking after; George thought that it would 
be wisest for John to stay at home, and to attend to 
his duties. A widower could conscientiously leave the 
apple of his eye, and journey across the ocean, to turn 
those honest pennies, over the earning of which Han- 
nah and Miss Blake alike lamented. 

Mr. Brand was an onlooker in the little house in 
Horton Street, and he saw, therefore, most of the 
game ; he was not satisfied with what he saw, he wor- 


SUNSET. 


87 


ried himself most unnecessarily about his neighbor’s 
business. In bygone days Isabel had been often in 
his house, and he had heard her praised and pitied 
too. 

God called the nearest Angels who dwell with him above : 

The tenderest one was Pity, the dearest one was Love. 

There was much love and pity in poor George’s 
heart. He was an energetic man, and he backed up 
those “ dear ” and “ tender ” qualities with active 
work. He never let the grass grow under his feet; 
long ago he had hustled Frances prematurely with 
preparations for the cottage, in which their “ love ” 
was to be confined. He had married promptly when 
the cottage scheme fell through. How that an un- 
pleasant duty lay before him, he did not linger about 
its fulfillment: but, nevertheless, the sight of Han- 
nah’s miserable face haunted him all through that 
busy morning. 

Women are incomprehensible, he had never quite 
understood their emotions. Hannah was the only one 
of his household who was absolutely indispensable 
to his comfort; she had been proved faithful, so that 
he might trust her with the treasure of his life. He 
was not given to blame his fellow-creatures, but he 
was inclined to think it rather absurd of Hannah to 
lament, not guessing what a storm his news had raised 
in her breast. 

He was at home again, with half-an-hour to spare, 
before the arrival of his guests, and he fidgeted about 
his drawing-room, wondering why it had grown such a 
stiff, formal place. In bygone days the same ac- 
cessories had formed a whole, that had been pleasant 
and homelike in his eyes. 


88 


SUNSET. 


Nowadays the very flowers looked as though they 
had swallowed pokers, so tightly had they been 
crammed into vases. Ah, he never lived here, that 
was it, the library was his sanctum. 

But now there came a some one who would banish 
shadows, and fill the empty room for George again. 
A some one whose eyelashes were wet with tears, for 
he had been scrubbed, and dressed, and brushed with 
zeal; and at an uncanonical hour. 

“ Don’t care about company, daddy,” he burst out, 
from the doorway. “ Don’t like no girls coming to 
Bra’s house. Mr. Williams and cook were quar’lin’. 
I heard it: he says he weren’t, but he were. Han- 
nah’s cross, she snip snapt my nails, and pricked them 
too. I’m an awful clean little boy, but I don’t like no 
company.” 

He was vociferating that he hated company even 
when the guests were admitted; George had rebuked 
his sentiments, and Fra was so overwrought that he 
was shedding tears upon his father’s waistcoat. It 
seemed that the Norton Street contingent were always 
to take the little boy at a disadvantage. 

The day was cold for the time of year, the fire was 
languid with damp sticks; a drizzling rain had begun 
to fall, and the Limes under these circumstances did 
not look its best. 

Isabel had not wished to come, but to please her 
companion she had given up an engagement; with a 
shade of martyrdom in her manner she responded to 
her host’s greetings. John was in a mood which his 
friends called “ quiet ” when they meant to be con- 
ciliatory, but which his wife termed cross when she 
was not forbearing. Frances wore an air of con- 


SUNSET. 


89 


straint, which accorded ill with her rush of conversa- 
tion. Alix had tom her frock on getting out of the 
cab, and was dejected at the accident; she stood on 
one leg near the door, longing to follow Elizabeth to 
the upper regions. 

Mr. Brand was not a man of easy manners, he was 
indeed so genuine a person that he might almost be 
said to have no manners at all; the manner was the 
man, and the man felt that things were going awry; 
and he looked as though he felt it. 

All power of accurate observation failed Frances, 
because she was feeling acutely; and'if George seemed 
dull she was ready to believe that he, too, was over- 
whelmed by memory and by hope. Though she had 
a box of soldiers under her pretty glittering cloak for 
Fra, she forgot it, and let the boy get outrageously 
wild for want of something definite to do. 

The first comfort she found was in getting off to 
her own room, and sitting there, with her head in her 
hands, and a lump in her throat. 

With a tolerant curiosity women have a way of 
examining a bachelor’s abode; they pry, indulgently 
scoffing, into his domestic arrangements; they have a 
lenient interest in his blunders; his ways and habits 
amuse them: they treat his regime as a joke. 

But the house of a widower is another thing, a 
woman sees nothing ludicrous in the touches that tell 
of the want of her sex there. 

As the afternoon turned to evening, and again and 
again the lack of mistress at the Limes made itself felt, 
Frances’s heart was wrung, so that she forgot herself 
and her future and her past, but fell to thinking of 
the woman who was gone. 


90 


SUNSET. 


The quartette grew more sociable after tea. Fra 
and Alix were upstairs, the fire in the drawing-room 
had burned up, and George stood on the rug and 
talked to Isabel; he told her that he was going to 
Australia, and he told her the reason for his doing so; 
he spoke out, glancing boldly at John as he did so. 

“ You go to Melbourne, Mr. Brand / 7 said Isabel, 
looking worried, even sad, for her face had a trick 
of melancholy, “ and we, I suppose, go to the work- 
house. Healthy and clean, — eh, John — but unsoci- 
able . 77 

John stared into the heart of the fire, frowning. 
His wife took the news of his failures very lightly. 
It would be a vast load off his mind if she took to 
economies as lightly. 

Forewarned is forearmed, as the saying is, and 
Isabel did not intend to take the matter over-seri- 
ously; she intended to believe that men exaggerated 
their poverty to their wives. But as Mr. Brand had 
to go to Australia there was a strong argument in 
John’s favor, and she heaved a sigh over her little 
joke about the workhouse. 

“ I have a plan , 77 said Frances, impressively; now, 
she felt, was the time for settling the Sylvester visit. 
Pliable Isabel only wanted the weight of marital in- 
fluence, to induce her to fall in with her usual ami- 
ability to George’s scheme. As the scheme was his, 
at any sacrifice it must be carried out. “ John, will 
you listen to me ? 77 

“ My dear Frances, we are always listening to 
you . 77 

She bit h$r lip and blushed faintly; she had had 
her full share of wounds to amour propre just lately; 


SUNSET. 


91 


a chatterbox is not a domestic, though she may be a 
social favorite. In consequence of John’s rebuff 
Frances brought out her plan bluntly and ungar- 
nished; a month ago she would have retorted gayly 
to his remark; it hurt her that day, and she left it 
alone. 

“ My plan is concise enough. Let your house for 
the season, and send Isabel and Alix to me at Way- 
field. I shall love to have them, now that Constance 
is married I shall be quite alone when I go home. It 
would be a capital arrangement, cheap and sociable. 
I have set my heart upon it. I have thought it all 
out.” 

George and Isabel had stopped talking to listen; 
the latter lifted her great soft eyes to her husband’s 
face, and George watched her. 

Each mind save J ohn’s was used to the idea. John 
had a masculine distaste for arrangements which were 
not of his organizing. 

“ Capital, sociable, cheap,” he repeated, sharply. 
“ You talk of divorce as sociable. So you would cart 
off my family to Devon, Frances, as a sociable ar- 
rangement for me? ” 

“ Of many evils I would choose the lesser.” 

“ How long is the separation to last? ” 

“ Till George comes home with everything set 
straight, and a fortune for you both. Then I will 
come to Norton Street and help Isabel to spend it.” 

“ She won’t want much help.” 

John pooh-poohed the whole conception, and then 
he sat silent and considered it. George resumed his 
dialogue with Isabel, and Frances was left silent; and 
she remained silent. Was it true that she was that 


92 


SUNSET. 


dread infliction a great talker? It was time she Held 
her tongue. She was sitting on John’s right hand; 
not far from her on a small table by the window stood 
an embroidered work-basket ; into the pretty silks that 
covered it the dust had got. Beside the basket lay a 
book with a marker in it: a photo of Fra, and of 
Fra’s father in a painted frame, flanked the book: a 
low arm-chair was drawn close by the table, but it 
was turned at a sharp angle, so that it was not handy 
to be occupied. At that aggressively empty arm-chair 
Frances sat and looked, until with the flood of thought 
that the lonely nook brought to her, her mind turned 
to the son of the house; and slipping out of the room 
softly she found her way to the nursery. 

The Limes nursery was the most attractive room 
in the house. It was brightly furnished and lined 
with toys; there the fire blazed and the lamps glowed: 
a thoughtful mind planned and directed Hannah’s 
regime, doing all it knew to fill the empty place; so 
that, as long as might be, Fra should not realize his 
irreparable loss. 

“ I’m a good boy now,” said Fra, graciously, when 
Frances entered. “ Will you sit in the rocking-chair 
and watch us? We are putting up puzzles, and I 
don’t want no one helping us. I wants to do it our 
very own selves.” 

And Frances sat down; this desire of Fra’s was 
eminently masculine, and it was young. She no 
longer wished to put puzzles together her very own 
self. She wanted a helping hand with the fitting in 
of the mixed and scattered portions of her existence. 
The bits were all there, but they wanted sorting. Long 
before the children’s puzzle had been satisfactorily 


SUNSET. 


93 


solved, George Brand came into tlie nursery, and 
stood beside the rocking-chair to watch the boy and 
girl. 

The little couple were putting the picture together 
with great zeal ; they worked together, hindering 
where they would help. They mistook, misjudged, 
sighed, and tried again; while superiority looked on, 
smiling. 

“ There is something fascinating in a puzzle/’ 
Frances said. 

“ Do you think so? ” 

“ I am sure of it. A plain possession, which one 
understands all about, is dull.” 

“ FTot always.” 

“ Watch the children, George, aren’t they eager? 
Eager and worried, yet they won’t give up. We play 
like that with the puzzle of life. Don’t you think we 
do? Don’t we fit it together eagerly, as they fit those 
zigzags of wood? ” 

“ They copy a picture.” 

“ Our life is a reproduction.” 

“ They have the advantage of us, they know what 
they must make out of their playthings. As yet, at 
least, they have lost no piece of their puzzle; so if 
they stick to their work the picture can be com- 
pleted.” 

Frances rocked gently to and fro, her eyes cast 
down upon the little girl on the floor; she wondered 
about the piece of mislaid puzzle ; he had sighed when 
he spoke. 

“ You see, that I have done my best about Sylves- 
ter,” turning the subject rather bluntly, conquering 
her tendency to be philosophical and reflective. “ Isa- 
7 


94 


SUNSET. 


bel was nearly angry at the thought of leaving London 
at this time of year; and you heard how John took 
the suggestion? ” 

“I must talk it over with John, the idea wa3 
sprung at him. John is not the man to let his per- 
sonal comfort stand in the way of his ultimate advan- 
tage. Something must be done to cut down expenses, 
and the country is, as you say, cheap.” 

“ Cheap and nasty, Isabel thinks.” 

“ Get her to go with you ; ” he looked very straight 
at Frances. “ She may not like it. Do people usu- 
ally like what is best for them? I am extremely 
anxious about it.” 

“ I assure you, George, that extreme anxiety does 
not always get its way.” 

She was fretted by his persistence, men do not set 
herculean tasks to women they like; he cared for 
nothing but for the purses, plans, and business of the 
Beaumonts. 

“ I don’t know that, where there is a will there is 
a way.” She took heart over that soft-sounding 
proverb. “ You are a strong-minded woman.” This 
was a horrible and false accusation, but still it was a 
personal remark; it was more to her mind than bills 
and John, she was glad that he misnamed her very 
weak mind. She would get those people to Wayfleld 
if she could, but she did not want to talk about them. 
“ You are not a young girl,” he went on, the blush on 
her fresh face contradicted him, but Frances said noth- 
ing, “ and you are very fond of your Mrs. Isabel? ” 

“ Oh, very.” 

“ She is a woman who has a shoal of acquaintance, 
but no friends.” 


SUNSET. 


95 


“ Faithful friends are hard to find,” Frances 
quoted. 

“ Friends, I said. It takes a long while to add the 
adjective' faith to the noun.” 

“ To have a friend is to give a friend. Isabel is 
sociable, but she is not enthusiastic. She likes,” 
Frances shrugged her shoulders, “ every one; she 
loves,” again she shrugged her shoulders, “ her 
clothes.” Frances was not feeling quite kind, she 
knew George liked a gentle tongue, and this drove 
her, by the contrariness of her sex, to bitterness. 

Mr. Brand opened his eyes. Frances tapped her 
foot softly on the ground. 

“ Ah, you,” she said, “ you men don’t understand 
how we love our clothes; what an interest, what a 
consolation they are to us. We love our clothes and 
we love our drawing-rooms, and some of us love our 
children. Here and there a woman loves her husband, 
and ” 

George interrupted her harangue, she did not grasp 
his meaning, she was generalizing. 

“ She is beau-ti-ful,” he said, insistently. 

“ I call Isabel extremely pretty, not beau-ti-ful.” 

“ A feminine distinction.” Frances reddened, not 
because she was, — but rather because she was con- 
sidered envious. “ You allow that she is good-look- 
ing, that she is not domestic. She is is not wrapped 
up in those nearest to her; ” as usual, George was 
plain-spoken; “ that she has, practically, no friends.” 

“ She has sisters.” 

“ Several sisters, all married, all pretty, all with a 
capacity for receiving.” 

“ I suppose you mean ” 


96 


SUNSET. 


“ I mean nothing.” 

“ You are censorious.” 

“ No, I am only trying to think out her case plain- 
ly. Gertrude,” his voice dropped, “ Gertrude was 
fond of her. I don’t think she looks happy.” 

“ Who is wholly happy? ” asked Frances, thinking 
of herself. 

“ I don’t think she is even content. John is the 
best fellow possible. I know what a sterling chap 
he is; but I can’t fancy that he really understands 
her.” 

“ Good-looking women are always misunderstood! 
Men are compassionate over other people’s misunder- 
stood wives. If I could write a book, it should be 
about a misunderstood parent; or a plain spinster who 
was misunderstood. I am a little sick of misunder- 
stood sirens, and of misunderstood children. Aren’t 
we, every one of us, misunderstood? And a very 
lucky thing too for some of us. Being turned in- 
side out for daws to peck at would not be satisfac- 
tory.” 

Frances did not call herself selfish, she did not in- 
tend to be self-absorbed, but her feeling for George 
was a narrowing possession just then, which con- 
tracted rather than expanded her sympathies. 

George turned away, and looked up at the cuckoo 
clock over the mantelpiece. 

“ We dine at a quarter to eight,” he said. “ I 
have some letters to write before I dress, I must leave 
you.” 

Frances held up an arresting hand. 

“ One moment, George. What is it that you want 
me to do? ” 


SUNSET. 


97 


“ Give her credit for liking something besides her 
frocks and her Chippendales. Get her to Devon, make 
a friend of her. It would do Alix a world of good to 
get down among the hills.” 

The puzzle was complete, and Alix heard her 
name, and doubtless from the evil communications 
which corrupt good manners cut into the conversa- 
tion. 

“ Mummy always says c yes/ ” said her daughter, 
tossing back her curls, which were much out of order, 
and trying to pat them into trimness with a hot little 
hand. “ Fra’s coming too, he says. He’s going into 
the country ’long of me.” 

Fra was still playing with the pictures of his 
puzzle. 

“ Yes, I are,” he said; then his weak-minded 
father, without contradicting the little boy, slipped 
from the room. 


CHAPTER VIII. 


Who would keep an ancient form 
Through which the spirit breathes no more I 

In Memoriam. 

Feances sat before ber looking-glass, brushing out 
her nut-brown hair with long, swift pulls of her glit- 
tering brush; she had allowed herself ample time for 
the important function of dressing. 

There was a debonair air about her, an upright 
poise of head, a decision in her quick movements, glow- 
ing health in her firm pink cheeks, active life in her 
keen eyes; and yet as she twisted her coils of hair, 
pinned them deftly about the nape of her round neck, 
she owned to the heart-ache. 

And this heart-ache was not for the first person 
singular. It was not because she cast her pearls to 
some one who saw no value in them, who would not 
even tread them under foot, but who took no sort of 
notice of them. She did not want a return for these 
jewels of hers; it had come to that. But she did 
want to give them away, and that favor was denied 
her. 

The gift was nothing, it was to help poor George 
that she desired; to be of some use, of some good to 
his life, to add some jot or tittle to his happiness. 

98 


SUNSET. 


99 


Once a word, or a smile of hers had set him smiling 
back again; her smile or her frowns now were singu- 
larly ineffective; ah, her heart ached for him in this 
misgoverned, lonely house. 

Before dinner was ended, Frances was ready to 
take a place as housekeeper to a widower; at any- 
rate she might do something for George, she might 
give the cook warning, it was a step that ought to be 
taken. 

They had waited in the drawing-room for twenty 
minutes before that unsavory repast, dinner, had been 
announced. They attacked the luke-warm soup lan- 
guidly, hoping for better things which never came, 
for Mr. Brand’s dinner was a long, many-coursed fail- 
ure from soup to savory. 

And the diners themselves were severally de- 
pressed; when I say that John faced his bad dinner 
like a man, it will be understood that he did not shrink 
from his duty to George’s cook, by pretending to like 
what was not nice, nor to his taste. Hope deferred 
made his heart sick, and his voice silent. 

Though she conscientiously tried to be pleasant 
Isabel yawned twice; it was hard to be dragged to 
such a dreary festivity; she would as soon have been 
at home. 

Frances sympathized too much with her host over 
his entertainment to be lively, she was conscious, too, 
of being overdressed ; there was too little of her white 
satin bodice and too much pearl embroidery on her 
skirts, to be in keeping with such a singularly quiet 
evening. She quailed before the double o’s of every- 
thing. It was a relief to her when the servants with- 
drew and a safe dessert, which could not go awry, lay 


100 


SUNSET. 


spread before the party. Then the two children, as 
refreshers, came demurely into the room. 

“ Good Lord, is that boy of yours never in bed, 
George ? ” said J ohn. 

“ I gets up later than the dickies/’ Era said, with 
an ingenuous smile, climbing nimbly into a chair by 
his father. “ Alix will have a deserved fruit, not a 
pink one, thank you; that’s for you, Alix. I’ll have 
one the same.” 

The speaker’s self-assurance spoke of the indul- 
gence that surrounded the youngster. His eyes shone, 
he was radiant in an ill-fitting velvet tunic, his mop 
of curls freshly combed. He patronized his senior, 
Alix, who was not so sure of her reception, though 
her lacy white frock was new and spotless, her hands 
pink from the washtub, and her silk stockings wrinkle- 
less on her thin little legs. She admired Fra’s audac- 
ity, but he took her breath away. 

The dining-room quartette were ready to give 
their attention to the pair, they welcomed any diver- 
sion; even Fra with his shrill voice and incessant 
queries. Alix had been discoursing to him of a land 
of pigs and turkeys, of ducks and donkeys, of hay 
and cornfields, of rabbits and birds’-nests, of flowers 
and freedom; she had bragged to him of her intended 
visit thither, and then the little pitchers with long 
ears had listened while they played, to the dialogue 
between George and Frances. . 

Fra’s mind was full of Sylvester, he could talk of 
nothing else. He had made up his mind to accom- 
pany Alix to such a paradise; hitherto he had not 
found that the will of his neighbors was a serious im- 
pediment to the working of his own. 


SUNSET. 


101 


“ Daddy says you don’t like to go/’ addressing 
Isabel, while he looked gravely into her face. “ If it 
is a velly long time in the pulf train, you gets there 
at last, you know. Don’t she, Alix? ” 

“ Oh, yes, she does,” said her daughter, encour- 
agingly. 

“ You can eat biscuits, so many as you like,” 
gently. 

Isabel laughed, and lifted her eyebrows at George. 

“ You have been discussing me behind my back, 
Mr. Brand. Who told you that I did not like to go? ” 

“ I am the culprit, Belle,” said Frances. “ George 
and I were wondering how we could best inveigle you 
to Sylvester.” 

“ Tell her,” said Frank, appealing fearlessly in 
his extremity to John, “ tell her she’s got to go.” 

“ It is only you unmarried men, Fra, who rely on 
a husband’s authority, the marriage service is a fairy 
tale — vows and all. Pretty, you know, but no one 
dreams of believing it.” 

“ Don’t understand,” said Frank, sadly. 

“ If the marriage service was not a fairy tale, 
Fra,” said Mrs. Beaumont, gently twitching one of 
his dark love-locks, “ your daddy would not ask me 
to go far away from Yorton Street, as an economy.” 

“ I want you so badly,” Frances said, softly. 

“ Country air would do Allie a world of good,” 
added the second conspirator. 

“ She will assuredly want a change if you give her 
all those bonbons, Mr. Brand. I don’t think she re- 
quires anything just now but her bed; she is tired, 
aren’t you, Alix?” 

“ Yot in the least bit,” quickly. 


102 


SUNSET. 


“ Are Alix going into the country? ” 

“ My dear Brand, what bad grammar that boy of 
yours talks.” 

“ He makes himself understood, eh? ” said his 
father, smiling at the boy, “ and best grammar doesn’t 
always do that.” 

“ Am I going into the country? ” 

“ Your manners are as inferior as your grammar,” 
said George, “ we don’t go where we are not invited. 
Uninvited people stay at home.” 

Fra’s lip fell, he looked at Frances. 

“ Don’t you want me to come? ” piteously. 

Then Mrs. Beaumont got up, and took her little 
girl by the hand. 

“ Come along, Fra, come with Alix and dream of 
the country. Dreams are far better than realities. 
What, Frances, are you going to take the children 
upstairs? You are extraordinarily devoted to the 
small fry. Are you going to the country, Fra? You 
are going to bed, you persistent little monkey, and 
of your subsequent movements I know nothing at 
all.” 

Frances was curiously anxious to propitiate Han- 
nah, who showed the young lady no favor, being uni- 
formly stiff and unapproachable in manner. She 
brought the son of the house, vociferating through 
yawns, upon the Sylvester topic, — he “ did want to 
see the pigs, and to feed the chickens, he did want, 
and he did want,” — into the nursery. 

Hannah stood upright and grim, with horny 
hands folded under her apron, and looked down at the 
child; her expression was inscrutable, for her mouth 
was always anxious, and her eyes were dull-brown 


SUNSET. 


103 


and shadowed. “ Go to the country, my dear/’ she 
repeated, soothingly. “ Yes, my dear, go anywhere, 
go everywhere. It’s go, go, go, nowadays, anywhere 
and everywhere, so to speak; ” and then she flounced 
Fra off to the night nursery, with an air that dis- 
missed her visitor, a little disquieted in mind, from 
the sacred precincts. 

Fra was not satisfied with Hannah’s acquiescence. 
Hannah always said yes, and sometimes the “ yes ” 
meant “no;” words were curious things, the little 
boy did not understand. But Frances, listening to 
the shrill, eager queries, knew. — They hardly went the 
right way to work, so anxious were they to make up 
to Fra for the love that he missed; for the soft foot- 
steps which would never come creeping again to the 
crib-side; for the eyes that would never watch the 
sleeping child; for the tender touch, the boundless 
patience, the eternal care of which he had been robbed 
before he knew its value. 

Poor little lad, the breaking in must come some 
day; with the “yes,” and the “ no,” and the “do,” 
and the “ don’t,” all jumbled in his mind he would 
have to accommodate himself to the difficult journey 
through life. Ho baby knowledge of love behind the 
discipline, to prepare him for the faith of his fathers, 
could be his. 

Frances dawdled back again to the drawing-room, 
with a serious conviction that life was not so easy a 
thing as she had hitherto found it. Her friends had 
often talked to her of runs of ill luck, she had listened, 
and on reflection had managed to find some sufficient 
reason for the vein of misfortune to which they had 
alluded. It had come from a want of caution, a want 


104 


SUNSET. 


of judgment, a want of strength on the part of the 
victim. 

She had been discreet, and nothing but the most 
trivial worries had come to her. 

But no one could be blamed for the empty chair 
in the drawing-room, it was not Bra’s fault that he 
had lost his mother. Alas, life was sometimes sad, 
it was becoming perplexing. She had always had a 
dread of poverty, Frances had been reared with the 
conviction that sufficient money meant contentment, 
that money was the only possession which could not 
disappoint its owner. She began to fancy there might 
be greater domestic vexations than the counting of 
eggs, and the economizing in coals. 

It is she who wears the shoe who knows where it 
pinches; no mortal shodding runs easy from start to 
finish, and it is not well to limp, or halt, or wince 
when the shoe is irksome. 

Isabel was seated at the piano when Frances went 
into the drawing-room, she swung round on the 
music-stool and faced the incomer. 

“ I say, do you know he gives his cook forty 
pounds a year, Frances? Wasn’t that entree an abso- 
lute disgrace?” 

“ Boor man,” said Frances, “ the dinner was la- 
mentable.” 

Isabel rustled over to the grate, and poked hard 
at the fire. 

“ How long you were, Francie. I thought you 
were never coming. This awful room gives me the 
blues. I have never been here since she died, — she 
was so pleasant, lots to say. Poor thing.” 

Frances nodded. 


SUNSET. 


105 


“ Poor thing/’ she repeated. 

“ I think it is so cruel that we have got to die.” 
Isabel was kneeling down by the fire, holding her slim 
hands to the blaze, and she turned her sweet fair face 
to her companion. “ I hate to remember it, it always 
scares me so, and here I can’t help remembering it, I 
can think of nothing else.” 

“ People when they are old are glad to die.” 

Isabel shivered. 

“ Isn’t it horrible, Frances, old and ill, and then 
dying? ” 

“ It comes gradually. We get used to the change, 
little by little.” 

Isabel’s blue eyes darkened, she thought in silence ; 
staring up at Frances who was pacing restlessly about 
the room. 

“ Francie,” she said, “ John talked to me while I 
was dressing about plans, and I’ve been thinking. I 
will come to Wayfield. I have made up my mind I 
will. Nothing matters . . . everything’s going, or 
. . . gone.” 

This widower entertainment was evidently pa- 
thetic, for Isabel was emotional, and it was certainly 
not the bad dinner that had upset her, for she fed like 
a bird; while Frances was fidgeting up and down 
the expanse of carpet as a wagtail fidgets about a 
lawn. 

Though the wording of the acceptance of the in- 
vitation was not gratifying, Frances was glad to hear 
it. John’s wife must like John, thought his cousin, 
for she is evidently wounded by his wishing to econo- 
mize by parting with his family. Isabel’s blue eyes 
had grown misty, and her lips were certainly un- 


106 


SUNSET. 


steady. George would be glad, for George bad not 
learned to keep his fingers out of his neighbors’ pies. 

“ Oh, Belle, that’s capital. I am so pleased. It 
is awfully good of John to spare you, but he will run 
down from Saturday to Monday.” 

Isabel nodded her head, she was not enthusiastic. 
It struck Frances that were she in Isabel’s place, per- 
haps she would not be ready to canonize her husband 
for “ sparing ” her; there are some forms of unself- 
ishness which it is sometimes very difficult to appre- 
ciate. 

“ Money is,” she said, sententiously, arguing for 
her old convictions, “ a tremendous power, Isabel; one 
can’t be happy without it. 

“ Spurned by the young, hugged by the old ! ” 

there is nothing that oils life’s wheels so well as 
money.” 

“ Do you know,” Isabel was still staring thought- 
fully at the speaker, “ that Mr. Brand loses all his 
money if he marries again ? ” 

Frances had never turned faint in her life, but she 
found it wisest to sit down over in the shadow, and 
to draw a long breath before she spoke. 

“ Beally,” she said, and her voice was hollow in 
her ears. 

“ John told me to-night, we — we were talking,” 
Frances fancied she knew of what they had spoken; 
“ and it came out ; all the money, every sou, goes 
straight to Fra, and is tied up till he comes of age, if 
there should ever be a second Mrs. Brand.” 

Worldly-minded Frances had preached her doc- 
trine a moment since. 


SUNSET. 


107 


“ Money was a tremendous power,” she had 
pompously expounded, “ the great good of life; ” and 
yet this news of Isabel’s, so far from crushing her 
spirit, set the heart throbbing, so that the heavy ticks 
of the tall clock beside her were smothered out of 
hearing. 

Her amour propre had of late been dwindling, 
she had known it, without owning, that there was a 
barrier between George and herself. She had even 
suspected that the difficulty was not of her own erect- 
ing, but came direct from him. Once, certainly once, 
that conviction had subtly come into her mind, and 
turned her cold. 

Her pride need suffer no more, the barrier might 
be there, but it no longer held a twofold sting. 
Mortification is not a legitimate pain, it is, in itself, 
a species of evil, and cuts its victims from every 
point. There was no need now to be wounded in 
vanity; she was not a mere cipher in George’s life; 
she had her place, — a place of some kind left her 
still. 

George had strength, of all qualities Frances most 
admired strength of purpose; she had been foolish 
enough to look upon his business as a rival; nay, it 
was an accessory, she would be jealous of it no more. 
She would not allow herself to dwell upon the reason 
why he banished himself to the Antipodes; but surely 
she had had a great light, a dazzling light thrown 
upon the problems, which she had of late tried strenu- 
ously to solve. 

“ Poor Mr. Brand,” said Mrs. Beaumont, her pity 
for herself overflowed that evening and embraced the 
widower. 


108 


SUNSET. 


Was Frances sorry for George? At that moment 
she was sorry for no one in the whole world, not even 
for that poor thing who must have suffered. Yes, the 
poor thing must have suffered much, before she made 
her public confession of that evil admixture of love, 
which is strong as death and cruel as the grave. 

“ Money is a power,” Isabel went on, softly, “ and 
she, poor thing, thought her husband had been badly 
treated; I suppose she was afraid he might marry 
some horrid person who would bully Fra: men are 
green, aren’t they? So easily taken in: a good pair 
of eyes can generally do it. John says, Mr. Brand 
won’t want to marry again now; but I am sure he 
can’t know anything about it. A will like that is 
enough to make him want to marry. I shouldn’t 
think he is the sort of man who would like to have 
his hands tied. I think he looks ill, don’t you ? ” 

“ Yes, he is altered.” 

“ How he will hate leaving that naughty boy of 
his. I wonder he doesn’t ship John off to Australia. 
Look at the clock, Frances. It isn’t ten yet! What 
an interminable evening.” 

Frances could not echo the sentiment, the gilded 
time fled by according to her reckoning; she could 
not be silent, she talked fast. She would not fore- 
cast, but she knew that all around her the background 
of her thoughts might melt into hazy, richly-tinted 
mist, harmonious as one of Turner’s pictures. 

Her buoyant spirits were infectious, when the men 
came in they involuntarily cheered up, their tongues 
were loosed, the evening was at any rate talkative. 
It was half-past eleven before Frances got off to her 
room, where she might think out the two pieces of 


SUNSET. 109 

news which she had learned that night, with no ob- 
servant eyes about her. 

She was a woman, and therefore her first action 
was to look at herself in the glass; her face was not 
hard as she had fancied, it was soft, and her lips were 
curved with a half smile. She sat down and looked 
at it, looking at it long and absently; she was day- 
dreaming before the mirror, as any school-girl might 
have done. This was for her a novel and enjoyable 
way of spending the night; and Frances in the com- 
ing years never regretted those lost hours. 

It was of Isabel and Sylvester she thought; of 
Fra, of bearing privations gayly, of enjoying the inven- 
tion of make-shifts, of working, and helping, and do- 
ing. She did not think of herself. She never once 
moved her position, her elbows rested on the table, 
her full chin, deeply cleft, leaned on the palms of her 
hands, her eyes were upon the looking-glass. She 
sat her fire out, she wasted many feet of her host’s 
gas; now and again a clock chimed the quarters; now 
and again she thought that she would undress, and 
then forgot her intention. 

If there were sounds in the house to he heard, she 
did not hear them; she was alone, and yet “ the beat- 
ing of her own heart was all the sound she heard.” 
If footsteps had creaked along the passage they had 
not reached her ears. 

But if she could not hear that night, she found 
that she could see as plainly as woman need. 

The door of her room was behind her, and it was 
reflected in her glass. In the night, when the hours 
were small, she saw this door open suddenly: then 
there was a sound of a shuffle at the threshold, and 
8 


110 


SUNSET. 


Frances, brought back to mundane existence at a 
bound, got up and faced a portly red-faced woman, 
who stood candle in hand in the doorway, and stared 
at her. 

The woman was not good to look upon, and she 
was, — yes, there could be no manner of doubt about 1 
it, she was drunk; the candle drooped in her hand 
vaguely, but its light shone upon her unpleasant face. 

With a maternal instinct dear to her, Frances re- 
membered that Fra slept in the adjoining room, and 
must not be awakened. She had rounded once on 
a drunken man in Sylvester, and had driven him 
home; but that episode had been in broad daylight, 
with the vicar within hail. She remembered that 
this man had shown no fight, and she quenched her 
cowardly desire to ring her bell; moreover, at two 
a. m. it was not very likely to be answered, so gath- 
ering her wits and bracing her nerves, Frances walked 
to within whispering distance of the intruder. 

“ What do you want? ” she inquired boldly. 

“ There’s a man dead in my kitchen, mish. I don’t 
like it and I won’t have it. I’ve told him to go, but 
he won’t budge.” 

“ Don’t talk nonsense,” fiercely, for fierceness and 
fear are close allies. This wretch was the cook — not 
a burglar. The new woman is professional, but has 
not as yet taken to house-breaking. It was ridicu- 
lous to be in terror of a cook, and yet Frances was in 
terror. 

“ ’Tish-un nonsense. You come and see; ” the 
woman had raised her voice, and now she made a 
sudden clutch, and caught Frances’s bare arm above 
the elbow, dragging her jerkily out into the passage. 


SUNSET. 


Ill 


Again Trances thought of Fra, and stifling her 
desire for support and advice, allowed herself to be 
pulled forward. 

“ Hush, there is no need to wake the house,” as 
though a corpse in the kitchen was of no more mo- 
ment than a fly in the milk. “ Let my arm loose, 
and I’ll come with you.” 

“ There’s a man dead in my kitchen, mish.” 

“ Absurd, and you’ve no right to have a man there 
at all. Go; go on ahead. Steady, steady. Give me 
the candle.” 

As they neared the staircase a strong, overpower- 
ing smell of gas reached Frances’s nostrils, and com- 
plicated the situation. 

“ The gashscaping,” said the cook, “ plash is full 
of it.” 

There was a settee on the lobby. 

“ Sit down there,” said Frances, giving her 
sufficient help to insure her compliance, and blow- 
ing out the candle, “ and don’t move till some one 
comes.” 

“ There’s a man dead in my ” 

But Frances waited to hear no more; scurrying 
down the passage she opened the nursery door and 
glided softly in. Hannah was wide awake in a mo- 
ment but the boy did not stir. 

“ The cook’s drunk,” whispered Frances, breath- 
less, “ and the house is full of gas. Run and fetch 
Mr. Brand.” 

By the dim illumination of Fra’s night-light, Han- 
nah certainly did not seem panic-stricken; there was 
satisfaction not horror on her face. She had wrapped 
herself in a shawl, and was gone in a moment. 


112 


SUNSET. 


" You’ll take care of him, miss, the leastest thing 
wakes him,” she had said, as she pulled the door-to 
behind her. 

Fra was a better sleeper than his nurse thought, 
for the noises to which Frances listened as the minutes 
passed were by no means inconsiderable, and he slept 
through them all. 

It was odd to hear the sudden* stir in the sleeping 
house; doors banged, voices rang, there was a distant 
cry; footsteps pattered, and all the while Frances was 
on the look-out for an explosion, to add to the dis- 
turbance of the night. 

None came, however, and when at length Mr. 
Brand and Hannah entered the nursery, time enough 
had passed to allow the waiting watcher to feel flat 
and chilled, from the reaction of the drama. 

The master and nurse came in together; the latter 
still bore that air of satisfaction which ill suited the 
situation; the former frowned, — a perplexed, vexed, 
pale householder. 

His first glance was at Fra; it was natural, and 
Frances watched, with her eyes on his, wondering 
when he would turn to his boy’s guardian. 

“ Fra hasn’t moved,” she said. George had gone 
to the crib-side, his profile toward her. 

u Good boy not to wake. There was noise enough 
downstairs to wake the dead.” 

“ What was the matter? ” 

“ What wasn’t the matter? By Jove, it was the 
most disgraceful thing I ever saw. Williams was 
drunk, and there was a strange chap, too, dead drunk 
on the kitchen floor. Whole place full of gas, tap 
turned full on. I got the gardener up, he’s there, 


SUNSET. 113 

and so are the two maids. I must go down again. I 
can’t leave them, it isn’t safe.” 

“ Good gracious, no, sir,” said Hannah, “ we shall 
be burned in our beds. I’ve laid awake many an 
hour, many a night, expecting it; and that I assure 
you is the truth.” 

“ Why on earth didn’t you tell me before, Han- 
nah? ” 

“ Times upon times I’ve hinted things, sir.” 

“ Hints are lost on men,” said Frances. 

“ Thank Heaven, I founds it out before I 
went.” 

“ Thank Heaven, indeed, sir.” 

“ Ho thanks to you, Hannah,” said her master 
severely, going to the door, while Frances followed 
him. He went out into the passage, no one was there ; 
he closed the nursery door almost sharply, and stood 
frowning at the floor. His companion put her hand 
upon his arm, her voice was full of the sympathy she 
felt. 

“ You are worried to death,” she said. 

“ I am. Good God, how one’s household can 
take one in. Fancy old Hannah holding her tongue; 
what extraordinary codes the people have.” 

“ You are afraid of leaving Fra, George? ” 

“ Upon my soul, I hardly know what to do.” 

Then Frances, who had an inherited respect for 
Mrs. Grundy, elected to defy her. 

“ Send him to me,” she said, “ send Hannah and 
him to Wayfield. Isabel and Alix are coming; we 
shall be mutually responsible for him. With a treble 
guard of petticoats he will be in safe keeping.” 
George looked up, his eyes brightening. “ He shall 


114 


SUNSET. 


be the apple of my eye, George, if you will trust him 
to me.” 

Without a moment’s hesitation, George closed with 
her offer; he gave no thought to Mrs. Grundy, he had 
never been in the habit of studying her at all. But 
he took Frances’s outstretched hand, and wrung it 
gratefully. • 

“ Thank you, how good of you to suggest such a 
thing.” 

“ Alix wants company. May he come? ” 

“ Come, of course he may, if you really mean 
it?” 

“ I should love to have him.” 

“You have lifted tons off my mind. I shall be 
quite happy about him.” 

“ I am glad of that.” 

“ You are shivering with cold. I have driven the 
Beaumonts off to bed. I mustn’t keep you, I must 
go and reconnoiter; they’ll all be sober soon, so you 
may sleep peacefully. Good-night.” 

He strode off with quick paces down the passage, 
and turning to the staircase, was soon out of sight. 

Years ago he' would have been so tender for her 
fears and her feelings; he would have praised her for 
her pluck; his eyes would have glowed and softened 
as he dwelt upon her fortitude. 

Hannah had of course told him of Frances’s prow- 
ess, but he had taken it as a matter of course; a mat- 
ter of course is not a word that used formerly to be 
found in George’s dictionary. 

Frances fell asleep like a child with a smile on her 
lips. If she could lift but a feather-weight of burden 
off the mind of her host, she was to be envied above 


SUNSET. 


115 


all the world; and, behold, he himself had said that 
she had removed the whole load, and made him happy 
— happy about Fra. 

Much later George stood with his candle in his 
hand beside his bed before he sought the rest of which 
he had been robbed by his cellar. 

The light fell on a picture over his head, upon a 
dusky face, whose passionate brown eyes looked back 
into his night after night, night after night, with that 
eternal, changeless stare, which was all that was left 
to him of his beloved, all that he had of that tender 
love which had died for him. 

His mouth twitched as he looked, his eyes shone 
softly upon her. 

“ Gertrude,” he said, “ my Gertrude — my poor 
Gertrude,” and he sighed a long sigh like a sob. 
And, after his candle was out, he sighed again before 
he fell asleep. 


CHAPTER IX. 


Those wounds heal ill that men do give themselves. 

Troilus and Cressida. 

The village of Sylvester lay, as is the untoward 
custom of west-country villages, in the heart of a 
valley. Not more than three hundred people dwelt 
in the scattered, picturesque cottages that clustered 
about the old gray church and the little ivy-covered 
vicarage; but Sylvester covered a good space of the 
verdant land. 

Across the gardened thoroughfare called a street, 
flowed the Sylve, a wide stream hurrying between 
mighty stones, that formed the natural bridge, the 
ford-way, of the water. 

The little river rippled pleasantly over the shal- 
lows just now, making haste to get away to the 
meadows, where it narrowed and deepened, gather- 
ing force as it splashed in its rough bed on its road 
seaward. 

The Sylve, though it was a beautiful, winding, 
clear stream enough, had a bad name in the west 
country. When winter storms came, and the hill 
streams from the moor fed the ill-humored waters, 
the Sylve got into mischief. Swelling with pride and 
anger, it dashed seaward like a fury, and overflowing 
its banks, would do a great deal of mischief to house. 


SUNSET. 


117 


and property, and land. And once or twice, so tradi- 
tion said, it had whirled a careless, confident villager 
to his death. 

The church was built of gray moor-stone, and 
stood like a sentinel on the sloping side of Sylvester 
Knowl, nearly a quarter of a mile beyond Way field, 
the square, many-windowed dwelling-place which was 
expecting its mistress home that day. 

The white Wayfield gates stood open. Every win- 
dow, too, was opened wide, and there was a scurrying 
of maids in the house, and much mowing of grass, 
and snippings, and tidyings going on in the garden, 
where everything was in apple-pie order. 

Frances’s mind was orderly, and she had always 
had a knack of conforming her neighbor’s mind to 
her own. Her maids knew that they would not be 
praised unless they deserved it; they knew that she 
had an eye like a hawk, alike for defects and for ex- 
cellences. 

The prosperous appearance of the village was due 
to Miss Blake in some degree. The wages were no 
bigger here than elsewhere in Devon, and yet the 
flowery houses were spick and span, with twinkling 
glass in the lattice windows, and a well-cared-for air 
about the thickly thatched roofs. 

There was nothing to account for the prosperity 
of Sylvester but Frances’s intolerance for slovenli- 
ness, mismanagement, and want of method. Her 
readiness for making that intolerance known, backed 
by the vicar’s help; her suggestion and his fulfill- 
ment, kept the villagers up to the gratifying mark of 
order. 

Those who worked for Wayfield were well paid, 


118 


SUNSET. 


and Mr. Hardacre, the vicar, was well endowed with 
the wherewithal to help his flock. He cultivated that 
happy prosperous smile about the picturesqueness of 
his domain; he liked the people about him to be 
happy. 

Mr. Hardacre was intolerant of nothing but his 
neighbor’s misery; not that he, himself, was a face- 
tious person, on the contrary he was grave and earnest, 
his own personal content with life never forced itself 
upon notice; if it was his, he kept it out of sight. 

He had been for six years Yicar of Sylvester, and 
propinquity, or some such influence, had induced him 
to form an attachment for Frances. 

He had spoken thus of the feeling to her once a 
year ago, and she had treated him as if he was a child 
who had asked for the moon. She was vexed with 
herself, and she was gentle to him, but it was ridicu- 
lous, out of the question. 

# Tll€ ; quaint, old-fashioned vicar for her husband? 
With his long hair and his abrupt speech and his ugly 
shabby clothes — preposterous idea! 

He had “ formed an attachment.” Such an ex- 
pression alone might damn any man’s cause. 

“ Could he make her happy? ” he had asked. He 
was powerless to make her anything; she made her- 
self happy, she wanted no assistant. When he had 
understood something of what she felt, he had begged 
her not to worry herself about any pain she had given 
him, and they had fallen back into their ordinary, 
everyday intercourse, as though no such interview had 
ever taken place between them. 

If the situation was irksome to him he hoped that 
no one knew it; he was a convenient neighbor for 


SUNSET. 


119 


Wayfield; it is a convenience to have an intelligent 
mind on the constant look-out to render service. It 
might be inconvenient to possess a lover, but it would 
be a carping person who objected to being appreciated; 
and yet Frances did object. 

To one of Frances’s school of thought, a man was 
hardly a man at all who was not a member of the 
recognized ilk of easy-spoken, well-looking, conven- 
tionally-conducted Britons. Mr. Hardacre was not 
conventional, he was not well-groomed, he wore origi- 
nal coats, peculiar boots, and he said precisely what 
he thought; yet for all that Frances found he was a 
man, not a mouse. 

How could she take interest in a mind which abode 
in a frame that was ill-clothed, and which had not 
learned a knack of orthodox speech? Mr. Hardacre 
was useful, he was kind, he was a valuable neighbor; 
once she had taken his presence as a matter of course, 
as she took the weather; the eccentricities of the 
weather might be grumbled at, but there it inevitably 
was, a thing to be made of use, and to be reckoned 
with occasionally. 

As the London express slackened speed, and crept 
slowly into the Sylvester junction, Frances’s mind 
touched on Mr. Hardacre; he had kept her posted up 
in the news of the village. She had not always read 
all the cramped contents of his letters, but he had 
written often. He wrote much more fully than he 
talked, his pen was readier than his tongue. He 
knew her face well, what would he read there. Slowly 
from her soiled collar to her crooked hat she reddened, 
the blood burned through her travel-stained cheeks, 
she felt it burn. 


120 


SUNSET. 


It has been said that our children are sent us to 
teach unselfishness; Frances had had some such ex- 
traneous lesson from Fra during that awful five hours’ 
journey from Waterloo. 

The little boy had not been good, he had started 
in a state of excitement which had been weary- 
ing enough, but which Frances looked back at 
gratefully when later on he got over-tired and ir- 
ritable. 

The carriage was fairly full, he had not sat still for 
more than a minute, he had taken such interest in the 
scenery that he had rushed from window to window, 
scrambling over strangers’ feet. He had clung un- 
ceremoniously to any part of their person when the 
motion of the carriage was unsteady. He had stamped 
on feet and confiscated property. 

He had talked all the while, and had eaten con- 
tinually, he had cried twice: and he had romped with 
Hannah and torn off her bonnet. She was used to 
being a public nuisance, but Miss Blake was not. She 
would have been saddened and humiliated by her po- 
sition had she been capable of feeling anything but a 
hot sting of shame, that throbbed somewhere beneath 
the breast of her braided coat, and never ceased so as 
to allow a less pungent sensation place. 

She had traveled to that little house in Horton 
Street centuries ago, in those old times when she could 
hold her head in the air, and was not at all afraid of 
wearing all the heart of which she was conscious, on 
her well-cut sleeve. 

Through the slough of despond, through the val- 
ley of humiliation Frances had been; nay, she was 
now prostrate in the depths of the depressing land- 


SUNSET, 


121 


scape; she had come home, and the slough and the 
valley were that home. 

It was not Leap Year, and she had behaved as 
though it were. She had put out her little firm hand, 
and it had not been taken; she had gathered a goodly 
gift together; herself, and her brain, and her money, 
and her heart ; and she had heaped them all in a lump 
and given them away. The gift had been rejected, it 
was found not worth having. The proprieties which 
she had highly valued had proved worthless; they had 
been returned to her; they were hers again, and she 
herself did not want them. She would fain have been 
rid of every one of them. 

It was too horrible to think about, and she would 
not think about it, yet how on earth was she ever to 
think of anything else as long as she lived ? 

There may have been excuses to be made, but she 
found none of them; she was not perhaps a specially 
womanly woman, but she was woman enough to prefer 
to have died rather than to have erred thus, and she 
would never plead extenuating circumstances. After 
all, error of judgment can never excuse error of taste. 

Modesty is an absolute word, they say, lost in 
bicycles, and tobacco, and guns, and spade-calling, and 
the muscle and brain development of the century. 
But somewhere among the bold talk and the divided 
skirts lurks the feminine inbred quality, and Frances 
thought she had owned it; — though perhaps she had 
not reckoned its worth highly, till it had been swept 
away from her, and she knew of her loss. 

There had been no scene, but last night George 
Brand had come to Norton Street, and Frances was 
alone when he bade her good-by. 


122 


SUNSET. 


His face had been pale, his lips unsteady, his eyes 
haggard, and when he had talked of Fra he had 
broken down. The tears that came up slowly into 
the eyes which she had always loved, drove Frances 
to desperation. 

As I said there was no scene, no fuss at all, the 
words were short, the meaning was not spun out, hut 
there had been an explanation, and Frances had 
brought it about. To her eternal shame she had 
brought further pain upon him; she, a woman, had 
deliberately forced his hand, and made him speak such 
things as hurt them both. 

“I am a coward / 7 he had said, coughing, “ but 
children forget, don’t you see; and it’s the 
wrench.” 

It was the wrench, just the wrench, and then, — 
the ache of the strain, perhaps. She knew that he 
would not mistake her meaning, she thought her voice 
would be firm, but it quavered and wavered like the 
voice of a centenarian. 

“ George, why need you go? Why should you 
go? Don’t go, don’t leave — him. If you want capi- 
tal in your work, use mine. It is ready for you. I 
have it. What is the good of money except to save 
heartache? Let my money help you. After all, you 
are my oldest friend.” 

April sun is brilliant and bold, it had forced its 
way into the room and it shone on her face; he looked 
awkward, his lips grew firm and steady, he stared 
moodily upon the floor, not at the whiteness of his 
(i old friend’s ” face. 

“ You are very kind,” he said, “ but it is rather 
too late to talk of it.” 


SUNSET. 


123 


“ It is never/’ her voice faltered, and then grew 
firm, “ too late to mend.” 

“ Never too late to mend morals,” laughing un- 
comfortably, “ sometimes too late to mend life, — or to 
amend plans.” 

Again her wish begot her thoughts. 

“ George, you know I would amend; you know 
what I mean.” 

The awful silence which fell was eloquent with 
significance. 

“ It is out of the question, it is all too late. I 
couldn’t help making a fool of myself just now. I 
have had a lot of trouble, it shakes one’s nerves.” 
George paced to and fro. “ When I lost her,” he said, 
“ I lost everything, — except her boy.” Then he 
looked at Frances, and there was a look that stung, 
because, with her wits sharpened by pain, at last 
she understood it. “ She was my whole world,” he 
said. 

Frances’s mind righted itself now, she grasped 
his meaning; if he had one bitter memory about his 
wife she herself was the cause of it. In some remote 
way she had prompted the willing of the money. It 
was not the loss of his fortune which caused bitterness, 
but the will itself, only the will; because it was her 
will, Gertrude’s will. 

“ If you are rich,” Gertrude had said this to him, 
and her husband had only laughed at her, for she 
would often allude to his heiress-seeking, now that 
she was assured that she was his dearest as well as 
his nearest, “ and I should die, George, that mer- 
cenary girl, you used to like, will want to marry you. 
I know she will, she isn’t married yet, and she used to 


124 


SUNSET. 


stare so at me. She wasn’t nice to me, she thinks you 
don’t care for me. Don’t marry her. George, promise 
me. She doesn’t really care, it will be your money 
she will want. I can’t trust Fra to her.” And George 
had laughed and promised; he had never thought of 
Frances more than he thought of the many other 
dreams of his youth, his daily life was better than 
any of them, and Gertrude was dearer than all. 

And now his whole life was gone, he said, the 
fullness and the happiness of it was gone. Yet a man 
must do something even then, and the something was 
the making of money, the burying of the bitterness 
under the substantial weight of gold. He wanted 
to forget that he had not been wholly trusted; ex- 
cept for that one blot her memory was clear, it was 
sacred. There was no remorse in his sorrow, he had 
nothing to repent him of in his treatment of his dead, 
but this failure that he had found too late to rectify, 
a want of faith that had chilled him in his bereave- 
ment. 

Frances’s reason and her voice did not fail her 
now, she asked for directions about the housing and 
boarding of Fra glibly; she tried to relieve George 
of his awkwardness in this uncomfortable tete-a-tete , 
she helped him to take his leave. She went to the 
head of the stairs and waved her hand in farewell to 
him; and she watched him tramp down the pavement 
out of sight from an upstairs window. 

She never knew how she spent the three hours 
that elapsed before she appeared at the dinner-table; 
Isabel thought she had been packing, but the boxes 
were not filled until long after the household slept. 
George was at Waterloo to see the last of his son, 


SUNSET. 


125 


and he packed Hannah, and Frances, and Fra into 
their carriage in a bustle, for he was starting off him- 
self that very day, and the stoic time waits for no 
parting whatsoever. 

Fra could not be induced to he interested in the 
farewell. 

“ Alix and her mummy are coming soon,” was all 
he would say, when Hannah tried to catch his atten- 
tion and to fix it on his father, “ if daddy does go on 
the sea, Alix is coming.” 

It was not until they had been traveling some 
hours, and he was tired out that he remembered his 
father; he had been snubbing Frances persistently for 
some time, she was trying to amuse him by the whis- 
pering of the coming joys of Way field. 

“ Don’t believe nuffin’,” said he, wriggling his 
jaded, jarred, worn-out little body as far as possible 
from his neighbor. “ Hates ducks, and pigs, and 
primroses, and all sorts. Wants,” putting his dog- 
skin thumb in his pouting mouth, “ wants to go home 
and see daddy.” 

It was at this juncture that the train slackened 
speed, and the travelers arrived at their destination. 

“ Dear law,” said Hannah, “ here we are, Master 
Fra. What a day it has been, to be sure.” 

Hannah was a bad traveler. Frances rescued 
her from beneath a truck of luggage, and fairly pushed 
her off into the Sylvester brougham; it was a relief to 
find Mr. Hardacre on the platform. 

“ I came to meet you,” he said, “ I thought I 
might be of some use; ” and so he was. 

There was a vast deal of luggage. Frances’s ex- 
travagances took room, and Hannah was a cautious 
9 


126 


SUNSET. 


mover, who was inclined to take her own and her 
young master’s house on her back when she traveled. 

“ You never know what might be wanted,” she 
said, so she left no commodity behind her. 

Hannah and Fra were a surprise to the vicar, but 
he accommodated himself to their arrival at once, 
asking no questions. He carried a canary and a box 
of bricks for the boy, and he superintended the piling 
of trunks in the Wayfield donkey-cart. He suc- 
cessfully combated Fra’s intention to drive the 
donkey. 

Frances did not notice that he looked at her more 
than usual, his observation was always so sympathetic 
as to be unobtrusive. She was conscious of sunken 
eyes, and soiled cheeks, and haggard face. When 
she got home and looked in the glass, she knew she 
could not hope to have escaped notice. She had been 
living hard of late, and the hardness had told on her, 
even on her. 

There was no reason now to set off such beauty as 
she had to advantage, she dipped her hot face low in a 
ewer of water, and she brushed her hair smooth. She 
looked about her at her pretty luxurious room, would 
she never leave it? Was it to be hers while the bright 
chintz faded and the paint dimmed ? 

Was she to look out on that self-same landscape, 
day after day, year in year out? This was her home — 
she had always loved Wayfield, and now she had no 
joy in returning thither, she was to be a homeless 
woman. A house and a home mean different things, 
— the house was hers, the bricks and mortar, the ta- 
bles and the chairs — but she had no means of filling 
the emptiness about her. 


SUNSET. 


127 


Like a martyr to the stake Isabel was coming to 
Sylvester to-morrow; true, Frances had what Fra 
called “ company.” That wish of hers had been ful- 
filled, and the boy, too, was with her. She was glad 
and yet sorry that she had him under her roof. She 
had no right to the poor woman’s child, the woman 
who had distrusted her. 

George was dead to her now. “ He was all her 
life,” she might have said, “ and she had lost him.” 
Every day people lost what made life dear, and she 
was to be no exception to the rule. She knew 
that all the hopes that she had fostered had come to 
an end, she might write finis to the Brand side of her 
existence. 

And in one way she did write finis; she thought 
that in fiction things sometimes right themselves, even 
in such a muddle as she had made of her life. But 
she was convinced that in real life women had disap- 
pointments which remained disappointments, and only 
faded with the passing of time. She was convinced 
that when circumstances combined to thwart a firm 
desire, the desire went to the wall. 

She never thought of dreaming of better things, 
but she rated herself, and her folly, and her fate. 

She hugged her humiliation and drove it home. 
She took Fra down to the drawing-room with her, 
while Hannah unpacked, and, instead of looking after 
him, she sat on the window-seat brooding. 

Overhead, if she would have looked above her, 
stood a finger-post, a sign-post that centuries back was 
erected by weary patient travelers, to guide their fel- 
low wayfarers to follow in their track. 

Give : Love : Endure, is written on the board that 


128 


SUNSET. 


points along the winding up-hill path, and leads to 
where the sunset brightens in the west. 

She was not used to look at sign-posts for guidance, 
she had her compass, Self, by which to steer her 
course. Search, grasp, struggle, rebel, that compass 
said. 

Prances had no experience to tell her that when a 
small boy is quiet, he is either in mischief or out of 
hearing. 

She had given Fra a scrap-book, and he had, so 
she believed, remained sitting on the floor, behind her 
bureau w T here she had stationed him, calmly and rea- 
sonably engaged with pictures. No wonder he was 
quiet; the long, low, comfortable Wayfield drawing- 
room was a reposeful spot. Its broad, shallow win- 
dow was surrounded by creepers that fluttered and 
whispered in the April air. It commanded a view of 
the lawn, and of the dark shrubberies which flanked 
the flower-beds and ran down as far as the verdant 
meadows, those green pathed fields which gave their 
name to the house. 

The room was scented by a conservatory, the door 
of which stood ajar, so that a glimpse of the flowers 
within could be seen. Frances was fond of her flow- 
ers, but she had not been to see them yet; Dawson, 
the gardener, was grumbling about it, out in the tool- 
house. 

“ Ur aren’t bin in tu th’ grane’ouse yit,” he said to 
Sam, the weed boy, “ yii niver can be sartin of a 
missus. Ur’s full o’ quids and cranks, ur be — I niver 
heard tell thickee little gintleman were coming, till I 
seed un.” 

“ He wur in among the flowers whin I pass’d by,” 


SUNSET. 


129 


said Sam, whose board-school education had purified 
his English, “ doing a deal of mischief, no doubt I 
seed un at that there big pot of lilies ’pon the lower 
shelf, pulling flowers like weeds.” 

“ Aw, dearr, dearr, an ur let un be, did ur? An 
ur’s that pa’ticler, ev thur be so much as a leaf wrong 
on a toolip.” 

“ He was all by himself; Miss Blake worn’t there. 
I seed her in the winder.” 

Frances was aroused by Jane’s entrance to take 
away the tea paraphernalia. 

“ Where are you, Fra? Come here,” said she 
lazily: she was tired out, mind and body. Fra had a 
childish love of hiding, hiding somewhere full in sight, 
and being meantime exhaustively searched for. She 
humored him, leaving the window-seat and examining 
the corners and crevices of the room, expecting every 
moment to come upon the boy. He hid to-day with 
much more success than was usual with him. “ I 
can’t find you, Fra,” she said, laughing, “ what a good 
place to hide. I wonder where you are? ” 

Several minutes passed; she was wondering still, 
but she had left off saying so. 


CHAPTER X. 


Ah, well ! for us all some sweet hope lies 
Deeply buried from human eyes. 

Whittier. 

Frances was searching in earnest now, the child 
was not in the room. With a qualm, she saw that 
the conservatory door was no longer ajar; it stood 
three parts open, and she hurried in thither; the de- 
structive wolf had found his way into her sheepfold 
of treasures. 

The blaze of blossom which Dawson had prepared 
to gladden her eyes was no joy to her; on the tiled 
path lay the scrap-book with an uprooted fern beside 
it, and a ravished pot of lilies-of-the-valley bore wit- 
ness to Fra’s presence among the flowers. 

“ Fra,” said Frances, addressing space, “ you must 
not pick my flowers. I see you behind the palms, 
come out at once, I am angry with you.” 

She did well to be angry, but her reproof was 
thrown away. Fra was not behind the palms, he was 
not among the flowers, both he and his lilies had gone. 
Twice Frances walked round the square tessellated 
path, brushing her flowers roughly on either side as 
she hurried by. The door of the conservatory she 
found closed, but not shut, the handle was unturned: 
doubtless, Fra had escaped down the three steps into 
180 


SUNSET. 


131 


the garden. The fearless, enterprising guest was in- 
vestigating his quarters. 

It was not a warm evening, but Frances did not 
wait to put on a hat or a coat, she ran down the steps 
upon the path, and on into the open. Hannah did 
not look upon her with special favor, she would not 
overlook her carelessness, neither could Frances over- 
look it. She did not call Fra loudly at first, but she 
called him sharply from time to time. 

She was soon a little out of breath, for she in- 
creased her pace as the moments passed. Fra was 
not in the stable-yard or in the stables, he was not 
in the flower-garden. It took time to search the big 
kitchen-garden, hut he was not there; neither had 
Dawson nor Sam seen him since he left his lilies. 

Their mistress’s growing anxiety infected them; 
they looked into the cow-house and the tool-house, 
and Sam peered into the cucumber-frames. 

“ Bring him into the house directly you see him, 
Dawson,” said Frances. “ I will have a look in the 
shrubbery, I haven’t been there.” 

“ Bless you, a child wudden go thire, it’s dark, 
miss.” 

Dawson was a father of ten, and should be an au- 
thority on their comings and goings. 

“ He is afraid of nothing,” she said ; but she 
paused, hesitating, and looked interrogatively at the 
speaker. 

“ I doen’t reckon ’ee wint through them there 
laurels, ’fraid or no ’fraid, miss. Childern,” stroking 
his chin thoughtfully, “ be turrubul fond of th’ water. 
Times upon times, I’ve given my little ’uns thur stick 
for playing wi’ thur water.” 


132 


SUNSET. 


A faint sick qualm shivered through the hearer, 
for a moment she stood still and listened. It was the 
hour when the birds sing their softest, longest songs, 
a dozen different notes were to be heard, and continu- 
ously, as a melodious accompaniment to the singing, 
the Sylve splashed, murmuring, rippling in its rocky 
bed. 

There had been little rain of late, and the water 
was not deep nor angry as it was in the winter 
months; nevertheless, it was a hurrying, dashing dan- 
gerous stream, whose neighbors mistrusted it. It was 
a near neighbor at Wayfield, it ran through the 
meadows beyond the shrubbery, and skirted the Way- 
field woods on its way down the village. 

“ I dare say, after all, the hoy went back to his 
nurse, ” she said, brightening at the thought. “ I’ll 
go and see. Meanwhile, you go on searching for him, 
Dawson, round the house.” 

Frances was at all times a quick mover; before 
Dawson had got into the drive, she was standing on 
the threshold of the room that she had turned into 
her guest’s nursery. 

Hannah was placidly unpacking, relishing the ca- 
pacious drawers - and wardrobes, and appreciating the 
many arrangements made for her comfort. The dread- 
ed journey was over, and it seemed that she and Mas- 
ter Fra had fallen upon clover. When she saw 
Frances’s face she put down a heap of socks on the 
washstand, and Fra’s lullaby which she had been hum- 
ming ceased. 

“ Has he been up here? ” 

“ Ho, miss.” 

“ Hannah, I have — lost him.” 


SUNSET. 133 

Metaphorically Hannah did not turn a hair. Calm- 
ness has its merits. 

“ Don’t you be afraid, miss, he’s just hiding away. 
He likes to scare you. He’ll be as still as a mouse be- 
hind a curtain for more than a minute. I’ve known 
him.” 

“ I don’t think he is anywhere in the house.” 

Then Hannah put on a large black mushroom hat 
which lay on the bed, and walked down the stairs, 
preceding Frances. 

“ Has he got out, then? ” 

“ I don’t know where he is gone. I gave him a 
hook and thought he was looking at it; he was in the 
drawing-room with me. I never heard him move, 
but the conservatory door was ajar, and when I 
spoke to him he was gone. His book was in the 
conservatory on the ground, and he had been pick- 
ing the flowers. The door which led into the garden 
was open.” 

“ Dear, dear, it’s going to rain. He’ll catch his 
death of cold in his thin little shoes.” 

With a professional hide-and-seeker’s eye, Hannah 
searched the drawing-room and hall. When she saw 
the lily pot and the book, and the open door, she 
shook her head. 

“ He’s out of doors,” she said, and unceremoniously 
led the way into the garden. 

She was a town-bred woman, with an innate sus- 
picion of the country and of its ignorant inhabitants; 
she turned pale, looking as lost as poor Fra himself, 
as she stared blankly upon the unfamiliar lawn and 
paths, about which she knew no way, nor landmark. 

“ Master Fra,” she called. “ Master Fra, for pity’s 


134 


SUNSET. 


sake come back to Hannah.” Then she drew up sud- 
denly and listened. 

“ I hear water,” she said; she had not known of 
the Sylve, nor had she been told “ of the little ’uns 
being so turrubul fond of it,” but trust a lover of a 
“ little one ” to realize the pitfalls around it. She 
raised her head with a quick gesture, and pointed 
across the meadow to the banks of the stream. “ Could 
he get there, miss? Is there any barrier between this 
garden and that water? ” 

“ Hone,” said Frances; “ go down the path, across 
the meadow, Hannah, I’ll set the servants searching 
nearer home, and then I’ll follow you.” 

It was only when Hannah had not known what 
clew to follow that she had been bewildered; before 
Frances had finished speaking she was twenty yards 
down the path, on her way to the meadow. 

“ I’ll take my davit, miss, ’ee ain’t round about 
here,” said Dawson, coming round the corner of the 
house at this moment. “ I’ve sint Sam slick off for 
the vicar, and there ur be, miss, coming up the drive.” 

As usual Mr. Hardacre arrived just when he was 
wanted, he was as handy as a Whitaker. Sam had 
told him the news, and his prompt plans were laid 
before Frances accosted him. 

“ You go after the nurse,” he said, “ I have told 
Pike and Carnell to keep a look-out, in case the boy 
strayed out into the road. I’ll set the village on the 
hunt, and when I’ve done so I will follow you. Take 
my cape, it is beginning to rain.” 

“Ho, no,” with a twitch of lip that expresses 
emotion better and more forcibly than any articulate 
speech. - She seemed to have a defiant desire to be 


SUNSET. 


135 


drenched, she was in a frame of mind to pile up 
agony. She did not behave as a heroine should, hut 
she followed Hannah at her best pace, and caught her 
up before she reached the crumbling rough banks of 
the Sylve. 

“ The little ’uns had the stick for playing with the 
Water,” their father had said, therefore it was certain 
that they had come safely home to receive their dues. 
Trances tried not to be sick with apprehension. Surely 
Fra would not wander far, he would feel the loneliness 
of the unfamiliar country. The stream beyond the 
meadows flowed through the wood, no child would 
plunge into the shade under the trees, among the 
scrub, even for love of such a congenial playfellow as 
the restless, noisy water. 

Hannah and she were staring at the stream, it 
seemed kin at heart to little Fra, with its ceaseless 
gambols on its way through life, with its tragic pools, 
and its unreasoning lightheartedness; with its gay 
rushes, its pauses, and its eager press on, on, to the 
unknown. 

Hand in hand the odd pair of women proceeded; 
their stumbling, hurried walk broke into a run; the 
younger one led the way calling “ Fra,” “ Fra,” till 
the cry echoed among the hills. 

They were within thirty yards of the wood now, 
they could see the banks of the stream till it was lost 
among the trees. 

“ Hannah,” said Frances, looking round into the 
strained face behind her shoulder, “ it is so far from 
home, he can’t have come this way. It is dusk under 
the trees, he would be afraid to go there.” 

“ Afraid? never! Bless him, he’s afraid of noth- 


136 


SUNSET. 


ing in heaven nor earth,” she cried, and caught her 
breath. 

Then indeed he was an example to these two poor 
women, for they were sore afraid. Afraid to look 
away, and yet afraid to look; afraid of the sprightly 
water; afraid of the blocks of granite; afraid of the 
still, deep pools; afraid of the turn of the stream; of 
the fringe of the trees. Afraid, above everything 
afraid, was Frances of the little rustic bridge which 
she had built above the water. 

It was a tiny bridge of two rough planks, girt with 
a single hand-rail for safety — a mere decorative after- 
thought. This tiny bridge spanned the deep trout 
pools that lay below the waterfall. Beyond it blue- 
bells grew, and great osmundi ferns that stood eight 
feet high when the early summer came. 

As they neared the trees the noise of the stream 
increased, it made a mighty uproar as it leaped 
abruptly down a foot or two, and broke upon the 
ragged stones below. 

In such a tumult of the water it would be of no 
avail to call for Fra, he would not hear his name. 

“ There is a bridge, Hannah, across the waterfall. 
A little bridge; he might have crossed it, if it was 
possible that he came so far.” 

“ He’s fearless, miss.” 

“ Yes, yes, I know. He may have gone across, 
therefore we must divide, you keep this side, and I — 
I’ll go the other. He can’t have come so far, I feel 
quite sure he can’t have come so far, but still we will 
go on just a little way.” 

“A bridge?” said Hannah, when they came in 
sight of it. “ Call that a bridge? A death-trap I call 


SUNSET. 


137 


that, not a bridge.” She stared at the planks, so 
high to escape winter floods, so narrow and so rough 
to suit a picturesque fancy. 

Again poor Hannah caught her breath, for at her 
feet on the wet grass, a soiled, bruised lily lay dying, 
a lily crushed in a hot hand, such as told a tale. She 
picked it up and showed it to Frances. With a twitch 
of mouth she spoke. 

“ You go that way, miss, and Fll go mine.” She 
broke from the young lady, and hurried on alone. 
“ He’s here about somewhere, and there’s no going 
back without him now.” 

Frances did as she was told; Hannah had not, 
even now, spoken one word of blame; she had been 
generous, and brought no accusation against Fra’s 
keeper. But Frances knew what might have been 
justly said to her. As she kept to her side of the 
stream, and trampled down the dank grass, and tore 
her gown sweeping by the brambles, and stumbled on 
the stones, her whole heart was sick and her body faint. 

The water was narrow, and the women steered 
their course along its banks. The stream had a fas- 
cination for them, they could not take their eyes off 
it; great moss-covered bowlders every here and there 
protruded from rippling water, and the dark pools 
which lay between had a mighty interest for the 
passers-by. 

Right through the wood they ran as the Sylve led 
them, and out once more into the open meadow-land. 
The mist had come down into the valley, and the soft 
rain deluged them, softly sprinkling their hot restless 
faces, and turning daylight to dusk. 

“I shall turn back,” Frances cried; they had 


138 


SUNSET. 


neither of them spoken, except to call the boy, since 
the flower had been found. She knew it was folly 
to go on now, it was waste of time, it was impossible 
that Fra could have outrun the breathless women. 

“ I must turn back, Hannah, and search the wood this 
time.” 

To turn back is not a favorite turn with youth; 
all the turns Frances took now were such. Hannah 
set her face to go forward. 

“ I can’t turn yet; as long as I can see, I’ll go on, 
and make sure. Fra! Fra! Fra! answer Hannah! 
Hannah’s calling you.” 

Frances left the water-side and tried to make her 
way among the trees, the air was hazy with the blue 
shade-cloud from myriads of blue-bells which sprang 
up high through the russet leafy ground. The ten- 
drils of sprouting honeysuckle clung about her feet, 
impeding her swift progress; all the time the noise 
of the Sylve rang in her ears. A voice seemed to be 
intermingled with the sound of many waters, and soon 
she found herself peering anxiously once more at the 
stream from its broken bank. 

And she said a fervent prayer or two. Frances 
had often said formal prayers like other people, but 
till that evening she had never known the anguish of 
helplessness. Hitherto, if she had erred, she had not 
felt the grinding of the mill of consequence crush her 
to the dust. Hot, fervent appeals for personal help 
went against her pride; she wanted help not for her- 
self but for the boy; in her extremity she said her 
prayers. 

“ Fra, Fra, Fra,” she called; a sleepy bird woke 
up and answered her. 


SUNSET. ' 


139 


“ Fra, Fra/’ swish, roar, splash, sang the water. 
Slush, slush, whispered the rain upon the trees. 

She knew every turn of the Sylve ; where the cur- 
rent was swift and where the pools were deep; where 
the bank was broken; and where the stepping-stones 
lay easy to ford in the rippling shallows. She had 
loved the banks of the little river, she had been about 
the water daily in old times; never again would she 
hear the dashing and the ripple without that day’s 
horror coming to her mind. 

“ Fra, Fra, Fra,” she called; her voice was losing 
power, it was hoarse with use, and she was approach- 
ing the waterfall which would drown her cries. 

Fortunately, her search was nearly at an end, she 
need call no more, for a prosaic bass voice answered 
her. From some spot close at hand, a voice, that her 
heart bounded to hear, rang out, with a reassuring, 
friendly, comforting, 

“ All right, the boy’s here. I’ve found him.” 

Mr. Hardacre was loyal, he knew that Frances 
was the one person in the world whom he desired for 
his comrade through life; but he also knew that at 
some calm moments he could find no logical reason 
for his desire. Such a feeling as he had could not 
have sprung solely from the fairness of her face, or 
from the brightness of her deep eyes, or from propin- 
quity, or from the price that some men set on the un- 
attainable. 

Some people give and some people take, the vicar 
found all his pleasure in giving, and yet he liked to 
know that Frances could give when the time came. 
Could give as generously as man could wish that the 
woman he loved might do. He was the sort of per- 


140 


SUNSET. 


son who expects very little of any one but himself. 
He judged no one harshly save himself. 

She came stumbling toward him from under the 
trees, wet, draggled, unnerved; wholly womanly. 

She took the uninjured and vociferating Fra out 
of Mr. Hardacre’s arms, and began to kiss him and to 
cry like a baby. She put Fra back hurriedly again 
into “Mr. Hardacre’s charge a minute later, holding on 
to the vicar’s coat-sleeve. 

“ I can’t carry him, he’s so heavy,” she cried; her 
hands were trembling absurdly. She still held to Fra’s 
leg with one hand, and kissed him ^passionately. 

“ I wants Hannah,” said Fra, “ I’m awful tired.” 

Frances’s emotion made Mr. Hardacre mute, she 
did not attempt to compose herself, she sobbed with 
her lips contracting, and her tears flowing all the 
time. 

“ Where is Hannah? ” the speaker was angry with 
himself for having forgotten the chief sufferer. 

“ Run after her, please,” cried Frances, choking. 
“ She must be at Phoebe’s pool by this time. Tell 
me nothing, he’s here, that’s enough.” 

“ Take Fra home; no, no, don’t carry him. Let 
him run, it may save him from catching cold. Go 
down, boy, you don’t want to be carried, a great big 
boy like you.” 

But Fra did wish to be carried; Frances pulled 
herself together, and took the small boy again into her 
arms. 

“ He is tired out,” she said. 

“ Please do carry me,” he whimpered. Mr. Hard- 
acre had started on his joyous mission, he had started 
to find Hannah. “ My legs will come off if I runs.” 


SUNSET. 


141 


“ Rubbish, Fra,” but holding him tightly in her 
arms, nevertheless. She was telling herself she had 
been hysterical, had made a fool of herself. 

“ They are awful loose, anyhow,” said the men- 
dacious Fra, yawning suddenly, and laying his head 
on Frances’s shoulder. 

“ Fra, Fra, why did you run away? ” She was 
crossing the meadow as she asked him this, and she 
shuddered as she did so. 

“ Don’t remember, I’m sure.” 

(( Where have you been all the time ? ” 

I picked some velly pretty flowers.” 

(( Where did the gentleman find you? ” 

“ I founded the gentleman when I looked up.” 

“ Have you been asleep ? ” 

“ Ho,” said Fra, his head growing heavy on her 
shoulder. 

It was no use cross-questioning the truant, he had 
fallen asleep like a dog from weariness, and even the 
gathering round of an excited and loudly-talking 
group of maids and men failed to rouse him. 

He was borne upstairs, and all explanations were 
perforce postponed until the arrival of the vicar and 
Flannah. 


10 


CHAPTEB XL 


We are much bound to them that do succeed, 

But, in a more pathetic sense, are bound 
To such as fail. 

Jean Ingelow. 

Frances came bustling into the drawing-room 
about five o’clock on the following day, and shook 
hands with Mr. Hardacre, who had been wandering 
about the room waiting for her during the last half 
hour. 

“ And what do you want?” said she, smiling at 
him — a society smile, civil, but not the genuine 
article. 

“ How is the boy? ” 

“ He has caught a shocking cold. What else could 
one expect? ” 

“ Where is he? ” 

“ In bed. I sent for Dr. Pullen, he said that he 
must be kept warm and quiet. I have been keeping 
him ‘ warm and quiet ’ at a great price all day ; Han- 
nah and I have been constantly employed.” 

“ I am afraid you both had a great fright.” 

“ Fright,” repeated she, pouring out a cup of tea, 
and handing the cup to her visitor. “ I never 
knew what the word fright meant till yesterday. It 
was an hour’s sheer terror — it takes a lot out of one.” 

142 


SUNSET. 143 

She put up her hand to her forehead, it was 
marked with a horizontal line or two. 

“ You’ve a headache? ” 

“ I never get a headache. I’m a little woolly in 
the head, the boy’s room has been hot.” 

She drank her tea thirstily, sitting bolt upright in 
her chair; she did not look at her neighbor, but she 
knew that his eyes were upon her. Keen, intelligent, 
small eyes, “ which looked the whole world in the 
face, for they feared not any man.” 

They would fall though before hers, and Frances 
realized this; and she realized the reason why they 
did so. All men were not as George; there might 
have been consolation in the thought, but her mind 
was not such as could take it. She received no com- 
fort at all therefrom, for the vicar was no more to her 
than the portion of carpet upon which his feet were 
firmly planted. 

She was not exactly sorry for him, she was too 
full of her own concerns to have any emotion to spare, 
her sympathies were submerged in the ebb and flow 
tide of her ineffective desires. 

“ You have not had an enjoyable time in Lon- 
don,” he said, suddenly; his voice was slow, deep, 
rich, and it had a way of betraying more feeling than 
his curtailed sentences. 

“ Oh, very pleasant indeed,” with another of the 
artificial smiles which did not deceive him, “ very 
gay, too, we were out a great deal.” 

“ But you are glad to come back? ” 

“ Yes, no, I don’t much care. I don’t think it 
much matters where one is, one has to pack one’s 
flurries in one’s trunk.” 


144 


SUNSET. 


“ Sometimes we leave our joys behind us! ” 

“ Sometimes/’ she said. She was silent for a mo- 
ment, and then turned the subject, pointing to a little 
heap of books that lay upon her bureau. “ So you 
brought those,” she remarked, suggestively. 

“ Yes, when you are at leisure, I want you to go 
through them.” 

She got up at once, and began industriously to 
look through the accounts of coal-clubs and what-not, 
catching out her vicar now and then over his calcula- 
tions; for her head was clear and mathematical, and 
he was a bungler about figures. 

“ I suppose you have paid all the women’s de- 
ficiencies, all the lost tuppences? ” she remarked, some 
half-hour later, closing the coal-club ledger, and shak- 
ing her head at the sinner. 

“ I have done much as usual,” 

“ As usual, as usual,” putting the book back upon 
her bureau, “ how sick one gets of living as usual, as 
usual.” 

If he had grown a little sick of such a life he did 
not say so, he was not thinking of himself but of her; 
he did not chafe at her indifference, he did not smart 
with mortified vanity; but he did rebel at the lines on 
her forehead, at the weariness of her eyes, at the bit- 
terness in her voice. He did rebel at his own curi- 
osity, at his own want of power to help her. By his 
own feeling he half discovered hers. 

Over his study table at the vicarage hung a faded 
scroll with a precept painted upon it. Long ago, he 
had chosen his motto for life; and a sister of his, a 
dear dead sister, had drawn the words for him, when 
the two young aspirants for high honor had set out 


SUNSET. 


145 


on a life, which was not to be such as their pure lofty 
hopes had pictured it. 

The scroll had faded, and she who had fashioned 
it was at rest; but there the words remained, and 
still the vicar looked up at it daily, and still he 
thought, 

“ O, it is great, — and there is no other greatness, — 
to make some nook of God’s creation a little fruit- 
fuller, better, more worthy of God.” 

He was not the kind of man to trouble himself as 
to whether Trances was worthy, even if his love had 
not been hers, he had a knack of discovering virtues 
in his neighbors. His charity was vast even where 
his heart was unconcerned. He did not expect peo- 
ple to be perfect, he was far from being perfect him- 
self. 

“ They are happy people, I think, who do as 
usual,” he answered. 

“ Happy,” she repeated, weighing the word. 

Trances had always intended to be happy, she 
liked sunshine; to be pent up in the shade chafed her 
more than it would have done a better disciplined 
woman. She had meant to share her happiness, “ for 
happiness is born a twin.” 

Sharing unhappiness is another matter. There 
was no sharing now for Trances. 

For such an outcast shalt thou be, 

Thou wilt not dare ask sympathy. 

“ You always seem to me to want the people to 
be happy before everything. You should insist on 
thrift. Any Bet or Sue can take you in. Your pro- 
fession is credulity. How many times have I saved 


146 


SUNSET. 


your pockets? Any one in the village can impose on 
you.” 

“ I think not,” he said, forgiving her hardness al- 
most before he recognized that it was there to he 
' reckoned with. “ But I realize the extenuating-cir- 
cumstance plea of the plaintiffs. I understand the fas- 
cination of the ‘ Red Lion/ the dullness of everlasting 
thrift. Were I in their shoes I should want to squeeze 
full pockets, — pockets, at least, that are full in com- 
parison with mine.” 

“ You are a republican.” 

“ So are most present-day parsons. It is the 
only modern spot in me. I fear credulity is old- 
fashioned.” 

“ Yes,” — she got up and went to the window. 
“ Talking of credulity, Fra has told his nurse some- 
thing odd. He is an imaginative child.” 

“ Imagination is an attribute the mere existence 
of which claims faith; faith in a creator of such a 
heaven-born gift.” 

“ You really do belong to the last century.” Fran- 
ces lifted her eyebrows at him, there was a trace of co- 
quetry about her. “ You try to converse — conversa- 
tion is obsolete. Please talk.” 

“ If you say ‘ talk ’ you silence me; I can only 
< preach ’ by request.” 

“ I want you to tell me how you found Fra, and 
whether he said anything — strange.” 

u H e sa id a good deal, I was meaning to tell 
you.” 

“ You would never tell anything,” she spoke with 
a shade of impatience, “ unless you were forced into 
it. 1 ou are a strangely silent man ; I don’t know 


SUNSET. 


147 


how you learned to hold your tongue, I can’t do it, 
I can’t keep things to myself. I wish I had the gift.” 

“ I did not learn to hold my tongue. It is diffi- 
cult to me to talk of what I feel.” 

“ Surely you may talk of what you know; one of 
your recognized duties is exhortation; you don’t even 
exhort.” 

“ From the pulpit.” 

“ Your sermons are short.” 

“ Not very, I write fluently enough. But though 
you blame me for not telling you about Fra, you 
turned the subject when I began.” 

“ So I did,” she was looking out at the lengthen- 
ing shadows on the lawn. “ Where and how did you 
find him? ” 

“ Luna found him.” Luna was a cute little ter- 
rier, a human being of a superior though mongrel 
sort, which was the vicar’s companion from sun to 
sun. “ She found him in the wood, past the clump 
of thorns under the hill. He was sitting to leeward of 
a bramble bush, propped up against a fallen branch 
of elm, tying u p bluebells in his handkerchief. 
Plucky little chap. He got up and held out a hand. 
‘ How de do ? ’ he said. ‘ I’m a lost child, and I’ve 
picked an awful many flowers. I was a naughty 
little boy, I fink. I runned away out of the flower- 
shop without no things on at all. My shoes is puf- 
fickly wet.” He balanced on one leg and looked crit- 
ically at the soaking sole of his left shoe. ‘ Can you 
show me the way indoors again, please? It’s pretty 
dark with the trees on the ceiling, and I thought 
Hannah would find me, but I’m not hiding, — first of 
all I hided.’ ” 


148 


SUNSET. 


Frances and the vicar laughed simultaneously. 

“ Was he crying? ” she asked. 

“ He was white, but he never shed a tear. When 
I got him to the bridge, I took him up and carried 
him. I had had nasty qualms about that bridge. 
‘ Don’t cally me/ he begged, ‘ I aren’t a baby, are 
I? ’ ‘ Ho,’ I said, 6 you are a big, brave boy, but the 
planks are slippery with the rain, and the water’s 
swift and deep just here. It isn’t safe for you.’ He 
let me lift him then and stared into my face. ‘ The 
lady took me by my hand, and led me for a little bit 
when I corned across,’ he said. I asked him what lady 
he meant, I was puzzled. ‘ I fink ’twas mummy,’ 
he said, questioningly, in a whisper. ‘ I did fink 
’twas mummy, and I asked her if ’twas, but she didn’t 
say nothing. She leaded me past the pretty water, 
right past to where the flowers are.’ He talked about 
her all the while until you came. He said it could 
not have been his mother, because she was gone away, 
and that he and his father went very often and put 
flowers on her grave. I conclude that his mother is 
dead.” 

“ Yes,” said Frances/still staring out into the gar- 
den. A letter had to be written by the next mail to 
George, she would tell him of the sweet quaint use- 
ful twist of his boy’s imagination. “ She was his 
whole world, and he had lost her.” Frances thought 
Fra’s fancy would interest his father. 

It interested her, and she thought of it so long in 
silence that even Mr. Hardacre was induced to break 
the silence. 

“ I should have that bridge altered,” he said. 

“ I will, it is pretty, but it isn’t safe.” She re- 


SUNSET. 


149 


lapsed again into silence; the practical talkative 
Trances was day-dreaming; and the dreams were of 
the order night-mare, dreams from which it was kind 
to awake her. 

“ You have not enjoyed yourself in London,” he 
said, abruptly. “ You have been worried in some 
way. Is it any worry which I can help? Will you 
tell me if it is? ” 

Her lips contracted, then softened slowly into 
a somewhat bitter smile, implying that her own 
follies were such as to cause her scornful amuse- 
ment. 

“ I have not been worried,” she said, “ but I have 
been finding out my incompetence; a depressing dis- 
covery.” 

“ Very, I made it years ago.” 

“ That’s not all. I have been putting my fingers 
into my neighbors’ pies; and I am afraid I’ve done 
harm, not good. You see, I undertook to look after 
Fra, and he’s as hoarse as a crow; I should not be 
surprised if he is going to be very ill: his nurse won’t 
speak to me, she’s so angry.” 

“ Is that all?” 

“ Ho, it’s enough, but it isn’t all. I have broken 
up my cousin’s establishment, I have persuaded my 
sister and her bridegroom to take the Beaumonts’ 
house in Horton Street; and I have got John’s wife 
and her little girl coming here to-morrow for an in- 
definite visit. I have promised her she shan’t be 
bored; she is easily bored, she likes lots of people, 
and shops, and money. When I made the promise I 
felt I could be a host in myself, I don’t feel like that 
now; promises are so easy to make, Mr. Hardacre: — 


150 


SUNSET. 


I should like to creep into a rabbit burrow, and keep 
out of the way for a week! ” 

“ Why have you made rash promises? ” 

“ From the best motives,” with a whimsical sigh. 
She did not care to meet his penetrating, grave eyes, 
she did not mean him to discover more than she chose 
to tell him, — she was garrulous, and liked to tell most 
things to a good listener, such as was the vicar. “ Ex- 
cellent, personal, philanthropic motives such as have 
guided busy-bodies from the beginning of the world.” 

“ It is a pity to be a busy-body,” gravely, “ the 
responsibility is great. But I want to hear what 
personal motives you have had.” 

“ I enacted the role of kind, capable friend. I 
thought it suited me.” 

“ No, no; I want the real truth.” 

“ You have the kernel, why should you want the 
shell? You shall have it. John Beaumont and Fra’s 
father, Mr. Brand, are partners, merchants in the 
City. They have a branch business in Australia; be- 
tween ourselves, they don’t believe in the finance at 
the Antipodes, and they don’t believe in their manager 
in Melbourne. It was decided that one of the two 
partners should go out, and see after things for himself 
in Australia, and Mr. Brand elected to go.” 

“ Is the Mr. Brand of whom you are speaking the 
George Brand, whose people lived in the White Cot- 
tage years ago ? ” 

“ Oh, yes, yes, he is the same.” 

“ Ah.” 

“ I have known him for a great many years.” 

“ I know that you have.” 

“ His domestic affairs were all at sixes and sevens, 


SUNSET. 


151 


he didn’t know what to do with the boy. So I of- 
fered to have him, little Alix Beaumont will want a 
playfellow.” 

“ Why are the Beaumonts coming here ? ” 

“ To retrench. Frivolity is expensive. Mrs. 
Beaumont is a dear, but she doesn’t understand econo- 
my. She couldn’t retrench in her own house, it was 
simpler to do it in mine, so she and the child came to 
me.” 

And the husband? ” 

“ Oh, there was no difficulty there. John will 
run down occasionally; meanwhile, he will have a 
room at his club and be quite serene. They are not a 
domestic pair. I am not afraid of her pining, but I 
am afraid that she will be bored to death. The 
weather is unsettled, this gushing, impetuous, un- 
stable April weather is what people with country 
hearts like, but what women with clothes-hearts 
abhor.” 

“ I don’t know why you blame yourself, I think 
you have been very kind.” That was the comfort of 
preference, Frances knew that he would always dis- 
cover kindness and virtue in every act of hers, if it 
was possible for a sane mind to do so. “ You have not 
forced any one to act contrary to their wishes.” 

“ Oh, but I have. I hammered away until the 
plan was settled. Isabel is a sweet pliable girl, she 
loathed leaving London, loathed letting her pretty 
house to Constance. I simply worried her into it. 
Economy is so desperate an evil to her, that she was 
reckless at last how it attacked her.” 

“ She has the child.” 

“ Yes, a nice child. Less trouble and less in- 


152 SUNSET. 

dulged than any one of Mrs. Dawson’s ten. Her 
mother likes her — in her place.” 

Frances knew Mr. Hardacre’s sentiments, she had 
heard them expounded from the pulpit; orthodox, 
old-fashioned, respectable sentiments they were; she 
was aware that he did not fancy her turn of con- 
versation, he was restless while she spoke. Disap- 
proval was not likely to affect her happily in this 
mood, and in the silence which followed her last 
remark, he gathered his books together and bade her 
good-by. It was a contrary world this, and his heart 
ached. 

As soon as the door closed behind him, she sat 
down before her bureau and wrote a. letter to George; 
she had promised to write by each mail to give him 
a full account of his son, and the mail went out from 
Sylvester that night. 

It was this necessity for intercourse with Fra’s 
father that kept the sore actively alive. It was the 
rubbing of salt upon the hurt, so that it should not 
heal by jot or tittle. 

Her pen was candid as her tongue, but not so dis- 
cursive. She wrote down every fact in connection 
with her small charge, she did not enlarge upon any- 
thing. She wrote of his quaint turn of imagination, 
but she was too tender of George’s feelings to be quite 
frank about Fra’s croaking voice, his flushed cheeks, 
and burning hands. She made light of his ailments, 
not to excuse her carelessness, but remembering that 
the recipient of her news would have to wait a week 
for the next bulletin. 

The next morning Mr. Hardacre received the fol- 
lowing note, — a penciled scrawl, not fit to be locked 


SUNSET. 


153 


away in a drawer among possessions of value, and re- 
read at odd moments till it was known by heart: 

“ Way field. 

“ Dear Mr. Hard acre, 

“ Fra is bad, and I can’t leave him. Will 
you meet the Beaumonts? They come by the same 
train as we did. Isabel is quite helpless. There are 
heaps of luggage, a bicycle, and a parrot, besides three 
petticoats. You are charity itself, I’m sure you’ll 
go, — if you had seen Isabel it would no longer be 
a favor, you would count it a privilege, and be grate- 
ful to me ! But now I have to remind you that exer- 
cise is healthy, and that you can get your London 
paper overnight at the junction. 

“ Yours sincerely, 

“ Frances Blake.” 


CHAPTER XII. 


No life worth naming ever comes to good 
■ If always nourished on the self-same food. 

O. W. Holmes. 

Era could not be kept in bed. Hannah told the 
doctor, “ She’d try and keep him there, but he did 
’ate it; as soon as he woke, afore his eyes were open, 
he was in the habit of quitting his cot, and beginning 
a game out on the floor.” 

Time proved that she had reason for doubting her 
capacity. He was quite good, but nothing save des- 
perate illness, or a strait-waistcoat, could have kept 
the invalid between the blankets. Between his two 
attendants, Frances and Hannah, they kept a shawl 
about him, and they kept him in their arms. Though 
he could hardly croak an articulate word, though he 
coughed a great deal, yet he had intermittent fits of 
liveliness, during which he played different sorts of 
fatiguing games. 

By the time the travelers arrived Frances was 
tired out, and had to exert herself to appear the cor- 
dial gracious hostess which her guests were wont to 
find her. 

It is easy to be gracious and cordial if fate is 
gracious and cordial to us. Fate had not been kind 
to Frances, nevertheless she stood smiling on her door- 
154 


SUNSET. 


155 


step, with the April sun shining upon her, to greet 
them; and she made them welcome cordially, though 
her muscles, and her head, and her heart ached right 
royally. 

Isabel and she kissed one another, and Frances took 
the former’s arm and led her off, laughing and talking, 
into the pretty drawing-room; as though life was as 
calm and melodious as the cooing of the doves with- 
out. Mr. Ilardacre, who had Alix and the parrot on 
his hands, stood aside and looked on. 

The hostess had expected a listless, travel-stained, 
distrait prisoner; instead of which Mrs. Beaumont was 
as fresh, and sweet, and comely this April evening as 
the Sylvester vale itself. She admired everything, 
she liked everything; her voice and her laughter were 
delightful to hear. 

Alix looked like a ghost, but she did not allow 
that she was tired. Mr. Hardacre plied her with tea, 
with hot scones, with soft Devon shorts spread thickly 
with cream; but neither she nor her mother would eat. 

“ We have been browsing all day,” Isabel said, 
getting up to look out from the window at the view 
of which Wayfield was proud. “ There is nothing 
to be done, Alix thought, but to browse.” 

“ Of course Alix was good all through the jour- 
ney; she always is good. Oh, my dear Belle, Fra 
hated it so, he was never still for one single instant 
from Waterloo to Sylvester, except when I told him 
dramatic stories. The carriage was full, so I had a 
large audience; I was desperate, I didn’t care.” 

“ Mammy don’t travel with me,” said Alix. 

“ I really couldn’t, Francie. I can’t economize 
by traveling third-class. It was a corridor train, of 


156 


SUNSET. 


course, so Alix and Elizabeth traveled humbly. I 
saw they were all right, but I don’t like the company 
who travel cheaply at this time of year. By the way,” 
looking at Mr. Hardacre, and meeting his eyes, with 
an ingratiating smile, “ I hear that Fra has a cold, how 
tiresome! that boy lives on colds.” 

“ He isn’t strong.” 

“ Spoiled children are never strong, are they? 
They like everything that isn’t good for them, — just 
as their elders do, — and then they get it, poor little 
short-sighted mortals.” 

She was still standing at the window looking out; 
she was clad in a cloth dress and a plain felt hat of 
Lincoln green, which seemed the most charming rai- 
ment ever fashioned in the eyes of the beholders. Her 
soft hair was bright and trim, her cheeks were deli- 
cately tinted. Her little teeth showed between her 
smiling lips, her rather highly pitched, but gently 
modulated voice was pleasant to hear. 

Frances noticed how continually the vicar’s eyes 
were fixed upon this beautiful Mrs. Beaumont, and 
she was no longer surprised at his electing to stay to 
tea, though as a rule he had a knack of knowing when 
he was not wanted. 

Alix behaved as well-disciplined little people do, 
she sat mum, and did as she was told, though her ex- 
cited eyes wandered about her, shining like stars in 
her white little face. 

“ How is John? ” 

“ John is John. Could he be more or less? ” 

“ How did He like parting with you ? ” 

“ He didn’t mind a straw. He made a calculation 
on paper last night about how much money would be 


SUNSET. 


157 


saved by the arrangement, and he handed me a file of 
my unpaid bills when I gdt up this morning, — rose- 
mary, for remembrance ! ” She laughed again. “ I 
didn’t pack them, I left them all behind on my writ- 
ing-table, as a warning to Constance.” 

“ She doesn’t mean a word she says,” said her 
hostess, addressing that listener who had not much 
talent for making, or for seeing a joke. 

Isabel smiled at Frances, and turned the subject. 

“ This part of Devon really is lovely,” said she, 
and her remark warmed the heart of her clannish, 
west-country hearers. “ Ho wonder you were pining 
to get home, Frances.” 

Frances experienced a shock of surprise at the 
obtuseness. “ I like the country at this time of year,” 
she faltered. “ In fact, I always like the country.” 

“ How what sort of an advantage can you possibly 
get out of the country ? ” 

“ Life is always beginning over again in the coun- 
try. Every spring there’s a fresh start, you get 
another chance all round. Every acre now is simply 
bursting with new life.” 

“ The old one is good enough for me,” remarked 
Isabel. 

“ Look,” said Frances, getting up and pointing 
from the window to the great expanse of spreading 
western hills, and gentle wooded vales beyond Sylves- 
ter. “ Isn’t it beautiful? Isn’t it better to look at 
than bricks and mortar? ” 

“ Yes, it is. I should like all that as a background 
to a foreground packed with humanity. You talk 
about fresh starts in the country, nothing’s new , it is 
all a yearly repetition.” 
ii 


158 


SUNSET. 


“ What is there new in Piccadilly? ” 

“ The fashions, my dear. You have forgotten the 
fashions.” 

“ Poof, recurrent as the seasons.” 

“ Well, you shall pick your baskets of roses, and 
I will buy my bonnets ; we are both on the same tack, 
we want to please our eyes. A rose dies before a 
bonnet, my fancy lasts longer than yours, Francie.” 

So on and so on, they wrangled and bickered, and 
fenced and laughed; both women were not talking 
naturally, they were a little excited; they indulged 
themselves by sailing uncommonly near the confiden- 
tial wind, — a treacherous wind which is apt to blow 
on shoals and quicksands. Mr. Hardacre knew little 
but hearsay about womankind. His parents were 
dead : his sister had been too good for this work-a-day 
world, and she was dead; he had lived a bookish soli- 
tary life, and had never had a peep behind the scenes 
where women were concerned. He had an old-world, 
protective, deferential habit of mind toward the 
emancipated sex, and though they are nowadays 
emancipated, independent, practical, intellectual, yet 
they might still find advantage in such treatment a3 
men, like this uninitiated parson, have ready for their 
use. 

Ilis sincerity was absolute, he could hold his 
tongue, but if he did speak, he set his mind upon his 
lips, and spread it out as clearly as he could, — not 
from a virtuous intent, but from instinct. 

“ Your antediluvian parson was very useful and 
kind at the station,” Isabel said later, when Frances 
and she were dining together, “ but I thought he was 
never going; he sat staring, deadly silent, it made 


SUNSET. 159 

me nervous. What a curious person, why didn’t he 
go?” 

“Vos beaux yeux ,” Frances said: “ under their 
influence he didn’t remember his manners. To do 
him justice he generally knows when he is not wanted: 
it was your doing.” 

“ On the contrary, you were the culprit, I be- 
lieve.” 

She shook her head. 

Late that evening Fra grew worse, and Frances 
dispatched a messenger for the doctor. Dr. Pullen 
did not say anything to increase, but yet he did not 
allay her anxiety. 

The boy was very feverish : so far he had nothing 
more than a severe cold; he must be kept in bed. 
ITe asked in Fra’s hearing where his mother was, and 
when Frances’s face had answered him, he was con- 
cerned at his little patient’s croak, 

“ I fink she is down by the water, she was yester- 
day when I was a lost child, and so I ” 

“ You must he quiet,” the doctor interrupted 
hastily, staring hard at the speaker, and mentally add- 
ing “ wandering ” to the boy’s other symptoms. 
“ Hush, hush, you are hoarse, you had better not try 
to talk.” 

Fra’s illness was nothing catching at any rate, and 
to Mrs. Beaumont’s mind a cold was a peccadillo, over 
which it was ridiculous for Frances to pull a long face. 
But no one can stop worrying even at the bidding of 
a disinterested spectator. And Frances pulled a very 
long face indeed for several days. She lived in the 
invalid’s room, save when she was in her kitchen con- 
cocting with her cook wholesome dishes, wherewith 


160 


SUNSET. 


to tempt the child’s appetite: — as though wholesome 
fare could, by any possibility, do so! 

Isabel did not seem to want entertaining, she set- 
tled down to a rural life with all the ease and grace 
with which she was wont to settle herself in a vic- 
toria. If Frances had thought at all about her, she 
would have concluded that Mrs. Beaumont was as se- 
rene as her little girl, who trudged her wheelbarrow 
at Dawson’s heels all day long, while indefatigable 
Issabissa sat and stitched under the veranda. 

Host and guest met daily at dinner; the mind of 
the former flowed with coughs and poultices, and 
sleeps and tossings, and sick-room fare. The latter 
was sometimes a little weary, for she bicycled daily 
through the beautiful rough lanes, exploring distant 
routes, and even mounting the wild hills beyond the 
vale of the Sylve. But her spirits were exultant, and 
she was full of chat, to which Frances lent but pre- 
occupied ears. 

Every day Mr. Hardacre called to inquire; once 
he had asked to see Miss Blake, but he had not done 
so, and once he had met Mrs. Beaumont in the drive; 
she was pale and tired, obviously anxious to get home, 
but he had lingered, keeping her standing with him 
under the limes longer than civility required. She 
remembered what Frances had said about beaux yeux , 
so she was patient; but he had no idea of small talk, 
and could no more make conversation than he could 
make a garment. 

On the fifth day Fra regained his voice, his ap- 
petite, and lost the alarming patience of illness: he 
regained what his indulgent attendants called a “ will 
of his own.” The convalescing was trying, he played 


SUNSET. 


161 


all day long at every conceivable game, improvised 
and otherwise, but at nothing for long. He did not 
remain in the same mind for two consecutive min- 
utes, he cried if he was crossed, and then cried the 
more in repentance. He broke into wildness and 
romped, he fell fretful and whined, he repented, and 
wept again. 

From eight in the morning until four in the after- 
noon he kept both Frances and Hannah perpetually 
on the go. He was a despot, and when he suddenly 
conceived a desire for change of scene, he said, 
brightly, 

“ Fra is certainly going downstairs. Fra is going 
to see Alix and pick flowers.” 

Frances looked hopelessly at Hannah’s imperturb- 
able face, which betrayed nothing but fatigue. The 
reactionary, stale fatigue which hangs about the room 
of a convalescent is not as helpful to the sufferer, as it 
is inevitable to his attendants. 

“ Shall I take him down to the drawing-room, 
Hannah ? ” 

Hannah was human, she was glad of a rest. 
Frances had had her nights in peace, though she 
had not spared herself in the day* It was the 
first time she had ever resigned her comfort and 
her inclination completely; she had been expa- 
tiating her carelessness, but Frd did not know this, 
and he had grown fond of her. Unselfishness is a 
popular quality, even Hannah looked favorably upon 
her. 

“ Do as you like, miss.” 

“ That’s nonsense, Hannah* I will do just what 
you think best.” 


162 


SUNSET. 


Fra tilted a box of bricks off the table upon the 
floor; be knew the crash would draw attention to him, 
and it did. 

“ Fra’s quite ready,” he said, tugging at Frances’s 
dress. 

“ Hannah, shall I take him? ” 

“ Keep him on your lap then, miss, and not near 
the flowers.” 

So Fra’s dark hair was brushed, and he was 
wrapped in a soft shawl, and borne off in Frances’s 
strong arms down the staircase into the drawing-room. 
The atmosphere of the warm south room, about the 
windows of- which the sun lingered all day long, could 
not hurt the child, and Frances said so to his anxious 
follower. 

“ Go away, Hannah, and get a blow outside; you 
can fetch him in an hour’s time. Don’t be afraid, I 
will take care of him.” 

“ I am not afraid,” Hannah looked the young lady 
full in the face, some amiable gratitude prompted her 
no doubt to try and please, “ no mother, no mother 
herself could take better care of Master Fra than you 
do.” 

Hannah did not notice the effect of her civility, 
but Frances felt that her lips tightened and blanched 
over the little speech, which a week ago would have 
sounded like music in her ears. There was an un- 
comfortable hot ache in her side while she ensconced 
herself in a big chair, and fenced it off from draughts 
by a screen, which encircled and protected it at the 
back and on either side. 

A maternal, was not the only love or care in the 
world, she told herself; she had an arm all around the 


SUNSET. 103 

child upon her knee, as she sat and awaited the tea for 
which she had rung. 

Mr. Hardacre was shown into the room a few 
minutes after the boy had finished his sponge-cake 
and his milk. Frances had lost her appetite for want 
of fresh air, no doubt. She was telling the story 
of the Disobedient Pig to the flushed lazy little lis- 
tener, Fra, whose head rested contentedly against her 
shoulder, and who was curled up like a kitten on her 
knee. 

Frances’s wholesome, fresh, debonair demeanor 
was gone, her hair was thick and heavy so that it got 
easily disheveled, and the slave-driving in the sick- 
room had loosened and disordered it; she looked too 
thin — thinness with her broad shoulders and long 
limbs was not becoming, it hinted at gauntness in the 
coming years. 

She had once had the calm, assured air most com- 
mon to matronhood, but now she had lost this trick 
of manner; she was unsettled, unsatisfied, even a little 
restless. 

The alteration was not startling, but it was there; 
and eyes sharpened and keen, lit by love, may be 
blind to defects, but they are quick to see such signs 
as these. Love is an intelligent observer. 

Frances thought she was taking her punishment 
pluckily, she used no narcotic to help her bear it; she 
did not pretend anything even to herself, no false ar- 
guments to persuade herself that she was an injured 
person. She had been arrogant, vain, unwomanly; 
she fixed the ugly adjectives to her behavior, and she 
shirked none of the diverse sorts of pain which had 
come to her in consequence. 


164 


SUNSET. 


She broke off in her story to greet her visitor, and 
was surprised to find that Fra did not rebel, but stayed 
silent and still while she talked, and while more tea 
was made. 

“ You have not been out since Tuesday. ~No won- 
der your head aches.” 

“ Who told you it ached? ” 

“ My eyes, and my common-sense.” 

“ I shall get out to-morrow. This boy,” with a 
soft pressure of her arm about the little figure, “ is on 
the mend.” 

“ At this moment he is asleep.” 

Frances bent her head and looked at the boy’s face; 
then she nodded and smiled as she cautiously rear- 
ranged herself and her burden as comfortably as she 
could in the low arm-chair. The screen behind her 
was embroidered richly in deep and gorgeous silks, a 
child is an effective touch in a domestic picture; the 
deep-eyed man who looked at the pair was lonely, 
and he had never cared for any one as he cared for 
the tired woman sitting there; yet only for a moment 
did he think of her. 

“ When does Mrs. Beaumont come in? ” 

“ Mrs. Beaumont comes in when she is sick of be- 
ing out.” 

“ Where has she gone this afternoon? ” 

“ Down the valley somewhere, I suppose. One 
has not much choice on a bicycle. FTo one, who could 
avoid it, would bike anywhere else.” 

“ She is a great deal alone.” 

Frances was nettled. 

“ I can’t be in two places, Mr. Hardacre, at once. 
I half killed Fra, I had to cure him.” 


SUNSET. 


165 


“ He is cured now, be in the other place now.” 

“ I really hardly know what you mean.” 

“ I see Mrs. Beaumont pass my house alone. I 
think she looks — lonely. I know that it is inevitable 
that some, people should have lonely lives. With her 
it is not inevitable.” 

“ Was it not a little dull for Fra? Men are so 
thoughtful and tender for beautiful faces.” 

“ That is not like you.” 

“ It is precisely like me.” 

“ Don’t be angry with me.” 

“ Angry? ” as if the word was incomprehensible. 
“ I am not angry, your sentiment amuses me, it is so 
natural. Only sometimes plain women feel inclined 
to quarrel with nature.” 

He did not connect her with the plain caviler, he 
was knitting his rugged brow into a furrow of thought, 
his eyes were upon the prosaic tea-tray, but they shone 
deeply and not prosaically. 

“ Perhaps Mrs. Beaumont is with her little 
girl?” 

“ Perhaps she is not,” smiling, not quite genially, 
“ Alix has gone with her nurse to have tea in the 
plantation; she has been kept apart from Fra for fear 
she should catch his cold.” 

“ Is Mrs. Beaumont nervous of infection ? ” 

“ She is nervous of doctors’ bills, which is much 
the same thing.” 

“ Scarlet fever has broken out at Cowley Bridge.” 

“ Has it? Isabel was going there to-day. I re- 
member that at lunch she suggested riding there.” 

“ She has been there before.” 

“ Has she? I think not.” 


166 


SUNSET. 


“ She admired Wydgery’s picture of the ‘ Bridge 
and the Inn.’ ” 

u Ah, yes, so she did; she said she would go in 
and have tea there, if she had time.” 

“ I met her the day before yesterday at Greenhill 
on her way back. We rode home together.” 

Frances smiled a little contemptuously, and threw 
back her head. 

“ I shall have to send for John,” laughed she. 

The vicar never understood a joke. 

“ Yes, do,” he said. “ Send for her husband. I 
don’t understand him.” 

Frances opened her eyes wide, they were cold and 
affronted. 

“ Don’t you think people understand their own 
affairs best ? ” 

The vicar’s strong mind had a weak way of bend- 
ing itself to tally with hers; it did not do so now. 

“ Emphatically, no,” he said, he meant it. 

“ Ah, Mr. Hardacre, you are out of your beat; the 
Beaumonts are not Sylvesterians, this model village 
did not cradle them.” 

“ The marriage service is much the same in every 
parish, whether the pair are Cockneys or west-country 
people, their obligations are identical.” 

“ Poof,” said she, with scant respect, “ the alle- 
gorical marriage service is not to be taken seriously.” 

She had been ready to take it seriously enough, if 
he but knew; he grew grave at her words. 

“ Every word in it, every vow in it, every lesson it 
teaches can be taken in dead seriousness, Miss Blake. 
If marriage means anything, it means all that. You 
are shaking your head.” 


SUNSET. 


167 


“ Love, honor and obey! What a farce that is.” 

“ I think where a woman loves and honors she 
will be ready to obey. If the man does his part, he 
will be loved and honored.” 

“ Yon talk of women as if they were primroses, 
all alike. There are wives and wives, indifferent good 
and indifferent bad, angels and demons, fools and wise, 
reasonable and unreasonable; don’t treat the sex gen- 
erally, treat them individually, you can prove nothing 
by generalities.” 

He stared at her with a dog-like look in his eye, 
the sort of dumb desire that seeks an outlet in speech, 
and is forbidden it. 

Frances was not thinking much of the conversa- 
tion; she was talking, but she was not interested in 
her subject; it would take a vast deal to awaken her 
interest, now that her life was blank and dull. 

She never pondered the vicar’s words, from experi- 
ence she had learned to expect him to say just what 
he meant, neither more nor less. He was a dull com- 
panion from this peculiarity except when she wanted 
a listener; he was a capital listener of course, and 
never forgot what he had been told. 

Women have a natural, but unreliable tendency 
to fancy that a man who loves them must be a man 
who loves easily. 

Frances had learned to expect a variety of senti- 
ment from mankind, and to be incredulous of con- 
stancy. She was not pleased with herself to find that 
she resented Mr. Ilardacre’s interest in her beautiful 
guest; she was never pleased with herself nowadays, 
and she despised the pricking of her wounded vanity. 
She was not surprised to find that she was unattract- 


168 


SUNSET. 


ive, but she winced at the discovery. It would be 
pleasant to be first with some one, she wanted to be 
first with some one; and “want,” as Elizabeth was 
wont to tell Alix, was like to be her master. 

“ Will you come and dine? ” asked she, suddenly. 
“ Come and take John’s place at dinner. Come and 
console the disconsolate.” 

She met his eyes, paused a moment and said, 

“ I was joking,” rather lamely. 

“ I thought so, but 1 am in earnest. I will not 
dine with you,” — he pleaded no prior engagement, — 
“I am an outsider, I am not the person, I know, to 
interfere. Nevertheless I urge you to tell Mrs. Beau- 
mont that there is fever in the hamlet at Cowley, tell 
her that I am there almost daily to see one or other 
of the children, remind her that she may bring infec- 
tion to your household and to her little girl.” 

“ Have you had it? ” 

“ I don’t remember, I may have done so in my 
childhood.” 

“ If I scare her she will be afraid of you. What 
else do you suggest that I should say to her? ” 

“ I suggest that you should say nothing else, but 
that you should not desert her for that little boy. 
Surely, surely, if circumstances break up a home, and 
deprive her of her companion and of her guardian, she 
should not be left solitary.” 

“ Your compassion runs away with your judg- 
ment. Guardian, companion? Of whom are you 
talking? ” 

“ Of her husband.” 

“ A husband is only a universal provider, my dear 
Mr. Hardacre.” 


SUNSET. 


169 


She was irritating him, and she knew it, 

“ I blame her husband.” 

“ Pretty women’s husbands get a great deal 
blamed. Their responsibilities, poor things, are un- 
limited.” 

The vicar shook his thick hair back impatiently. 
Then, had she watched him with sympathy, she might 
have seen him conquer his anger and get back dog- 
gedly to his subject. 

“ You said to me that Mrs. Beaumont hated the 
country, that she could not live without excitement; 
and I know you only say what is true. If this boy 
had really been ill,” an old Adam lurked here, only 
recognized by the speaker, “ it would have been dif- 
ferent, you could not have helped yourself, you 
couldn’t have avoided the situation. You have been 
glued to the sick-room.” 

“ Do you think I enjoyed it? ” 

“ Yes, in some subtle way you liked it.” 

“ I hardly understand why I am to be lectured,” 
she spoke stiffly. “ You should write,” an inflection 
of disdain in her tones, “ to John.” 

Gravely, questioningly he stared back at her, as 
though the idea was not new to him, as though he 
had entertained the preposterous notion and had re- 
jected it. She smiled at his want of savoir faire , at 
his lack of worldly wisdom. 

“ Wait on here,” for he had risen to take his leave, 
“ and see her. She will be back soon, and you shall 
judge for yourself whether she is neglected, bored, 
and lonely. You bachelors have a knack of living in 
other people’s lives, and overflowing with a vast deal 
of sympathy; you waste your emotion. You should 


170 


SUNSET. 


store it for your own fireside, when you have settled 
down into a comfortable, complacent, portly Bene- 
dict.” 

He seated himself again, she leaned her dusky 
head against, the yellow cushions, her bright bird- 
like eyes fell down on to the innocent dark *face 
resting on the shoulder. The richly-hued embroidery 
behind was touched with a streak of sunlight; just 
for a while the vicar forgot for whom he was wait- 
ing, and fell to dreaming selfishly. Then the sound 
of a laugh and of a sweet fresh voice brought him 
back to the difficult work-a-day life, about which 
hung no visions at all. 


CHAPTER XIII. 


We alter day by day ! 

Each little moment as life’s current rolls 
Stamps some faint impress on our yielding souls. 

Lewis Morris. 

Mr. Hardacre was not the only person whose 
dreams were ended by Isabel’s arrival. Fra woke up 
too, and was with bribes, cajoles, and warnings re- 
moved by Hannah to his own precincts. Frances 
thought herself good because she refused his invita- 
tions to accompany him, and remained where she 
was. 

“ Have you had tea, Isabel? ” 

“ Ho, I did not get so far as the little inn at 
Cowley. It’s too late for tea now ; it would spoil my 
dinner.” 

“ Have just one cup. It’s such a long way to 
Cowley.” 

“ Ho, thanks. The roads aren’t bad.” 

“ Are you tired? ” 

“ Ho.” 

“ You look as fresh as paint.” 

The rush through the scented spring air had 
painted Isabel’s cheeks with cunning hand; her eyes 
shone like stars; her flaxen hair curled and waved 
above her little ears. She had gone to the window 
and was standing there looking out at the hills. 

171 


172 


SUNSET. 


“ Isabel, have you ever been to Cowley Bridge 
before? " 

“ Ho," she answered. 

The monosyllable said more to one of her hearers 
than he could understand. For a moment he was 
stunned, for he realized what that “ no " meant. 

“ I thought Mr. Hardacre was mistaken," Frances 
said, getting up slowly and walking over to Isabel's 
side; “ he fancied you had been at Cowley before you 
went to-day; and they have scarlet fever in the little 
village there." 

“ I came to warn you to keep away from the place, 
Mrs. Beaumont." 

“ I have been several times in that direction. 
Didn't I meet you one day? " 

“ Yes." 

“ The road is the best about here." 

“ The easiest and flattest. The least stony." 

“ It is very pretty, too." 

“ Has your little girl had scarlet fever? " He was 
very grave, his conversation was always laborious, she 
knew. 

“ She has had nothing. Ho illness of any sort." 

“ You must have taken great care of her." 

“ Ho, it is luck." 

“ I wouldn’t rely on luck now. The fever at 
Cowley is a bad sort. I have been there every day 
this week." 

“ You — why? I mean, what takes you there?" 

“ Cowley is in my parish." 

u It is miles away. How awkward for you." 

“ Yes, going to and fro takes time." 

“Is there much fever?" She had leaned her 


SUNSET. 773 

head out of the open window and was arranging the 
shoot of a rose. 

“ There have been eight cases. Three children 
are dead, a little girl the size of yours died yesterday; 
it is a terrible disease, she suffered so.” 

Frances stared at this blunderer in surprise, this 
man whom she had thought so tender-hearted; she 
frowned at his want of tact, and Isabel left the win- 
dow, and walked across the room to the door. 

“ I am a little tired,” she said, “ I must go and get 
off my things.” 

“ Don’t go now, Belle. I have hardly seen you 
since you came, and Mr. Hardacre has waited an hour 
on purpose to see you. Sit down in this chair here, 
and rest till it’s time to dress.” 

“ I have a letter to write before post.” 

“ Write it here; you will have to be quick, the 
post goes at a quarter to seven. There are paper, 
pens, stamps on the bureau, — everything you can 
want, and Mr. Hardacre will post it for you.” 

But Isabel was not so pliable to her hostess’s will 
as usual ; she opened the door saying that, at any rate, 
she must get off “ her things,” and she was vague 
about the letter. 

Presently she returned, a little out of breath, and 
with an untidy breeze-blown head: Frances was sur- 
prised to hear that the letter was both written and 
posted. 

“ I took it myself to post, it is only two steps 
beyond your gate. One wants a walk after bik- 
ing.” 

“ Did you give John my love? ” 

“ Ho, I am afraid I did not.” 


174 


SUNSET. 


“ Belle, Mr. Hardacre has been blowing me up.” 

“ I met him on the drive,” interrupting her. Isa- 
bel seldom sat idle, she was busy sorting out some 
work from a little basket. “ What odd green eyes be 
has.” 

“ He says that you have been neglected, that I 
have shut myself up with Fra, and that you have 
been bored. He suggests that John should be sent 
for. That face of yours is dangerous, it awakens great 
sympathy.” 

Isabel laughed, she had a bit of embroidery by 
this time in her hand, and her fingers, flashing with 
jewels, were making busy, with a soft click of thimble, 
among colored silks. Frances sat and watched her, 
she was fair to see. 

“ My hand, too, always shakes after bicycling, Isa- 
bel,” she observed. 

“ I rode back quickly, — too quickly.” 

“ Have you seen Alix? ” 

“ Ho, has she come in? ” 

“ She came while you were upstairs, to say good- 
night, with such rosy cheeks that it was a pleasure to 
see her. She loves the country, she is always at Daw- 
son’s heels.” 

“ Yes, I never see her. Children don’t care a 
straw about one, Francie. In Horton Street Allie 
liked me because being with me meant getting out 
of the nursery. Here she wants nothing but a few 
weeds and a wheelbarrow to keep her in a seventh 
heaven; she is independent, even of poor old Eliza- 
beth.” 

Isabel discussed Alix much as she discussed John, 
she spoke differently of them than she spoke of any 


SUNSET. 


175 


one else. She discussed them in a vein of criticism, 
as though she wanted to harden her heart, remember- 
ing their delinquencies. As though she was on the 
look-out for the motes and beams which are, alas, to 
be found without over-much searching in our human 
brotherhood. 

If Frances had been interested in anything but 
herself, she would have been astonished at Isabel's 
attitude of mind: but she was full of her own affairs, 
and not disinclined for grumbling. She did not argue 
about Alix's ingratitude, about maternal hardships. 

She did not say that love, like anything and 
everything else that is worth possessing upon this 
globe, entails personal exertion on the part of the 
owner; work-a-day love is not a commodity that flour- 
ishes if it is left untended. 

If we own a rare plant, such of us as are garden- 
ers, we do not leave it alone to shift for itself. On 
the contrary, we put our beautiful possession whfere 
the sun will shine upon it; we preserve it from cold 
winds, we even exclude draughts from it; we water 
it, we cherish it if we mean it to live, and thrive, and 
blossom. Love may come as a gift, but when once 
it is ours it won't do well upon neglect. We must 
work for it, and think for it, and of it : we must exert 
ourselves on its behalf or it will dwindle, shrivel, 
wither, die. 

Love is not a self-supporting commodity, human 
love is not like that. Alas, it is human, and like all 
other human growths it wants feeding, — good whole- 
some foqd to thrive upon. 

The children can not argue about it, but they 
know it. The god and the goddess who reign in the 


176 


SUNSET. 


nursery soon get dethroned if they despise their god- 
head, and if they are not careful to preserve their 
sovereignty in the enlightened school-room. 

Frances did not argue, she assented. 

“ Fra doesn’t forget his father,” she said, “ poor 
little dear. When he was ill he was always asking for 
him. He w T ill be happy again, when he can get about 
with Alix. By the way, Belle, what are you going 
to do about her education? I suppose she’ll have to 
attack her a b c before long.” 

“ I haven’t thought about it. Elizabeth has 
taught her to read a little.” 

“ She will be very pretty, every day she im- 
proves.” 

“ Pretty? Do you really think so? She has 
John’s mouth.” 

“ She won’t be a beauty like her mother.” 

Isabel stared at Frances. “ I don’t think she will 
be remarkably anything.” 

“ There is no advantage in being remarkably any- 
thing. A great beauty, a fascinating woman can’t 
marry more than one man; and there is not much 
advantage in making a lot of men heart-sick, and a lot 
of women jealous. Alix will be wholesomely pretty. 
She isn’t a scrap like you, Isabel.” 

Unseen, unsuspected, a tear, hot and quick, rolled 
off the fine silk upon a white little hand. 

“ Alix isn’t like any of us, she’s a regular Beau- 
mont. She’s so precise, so painstaking, so methodical, 
a quaint little person. We’re happy-go-lucky; we are 
none of us estimable characters. We are essentially 
frivolous, we don’t shine as house-wives, we don’t 
relish store-rooms, and larders, and routines.” 


SUNSET. 177 

“ And yet,” said reflective Frances, “ you are all 
married.” 

“ We were brought up to marry, all six of us. I 
was the eldest. I married wickedly, sinfully early; 
we were trained for matrimony, it was said to be a 
blot upon us not to marry in our teens. We were 
not told what we were to do, once we were married; 
the ceremony alone was to be our goal.” Frances 
looked up. Isabel was speaking fast, almost passion- 
ately. “ Once we were married we should want noth- 
ing, a wife should have no vision beyond her four 
walls. Clothes and food, board and lodging, were 
necessities. My mother wasn’t well off, she’d forgot- 
ten that anything else might matter. The prematri- 
monial programme, the extraneous things, which one’s 
lover teaches one to expect of him, were luxuries, she 
thought, the supply of which was sure to be cut off 
by a wedding ring. The supply gone, the demand 
would naturally die. In so many cases, it does die, 
Frances.” 

“ Shocking, Isabel.” Without doubt the matron 
was joking, she was talking at random, but this sort of 
random affected the dignity of John, and nettled 
John’s cousin. 

“ Truth is always — shocking.” 

“ You mustn’t foul your own nest. You are run- 
ning down your people, you are turning up your nose 
at the holy estate.” 

“ Holy? What a word to apply! ” 

“ Church is consecrated ; holy, if you like ; but 
perhaps the Sunday congregation are not a saintly 
crew. Isabel, you are argumentative. I never knew 
you argue in my life before.” 


178 


SUNSET. 


“ One doesn’t argue if one doesn’t care. I some- 
times think about it all, in the country one has so 
much time to think.” 

Isabel was not her serene self, — her eyes, gently 
blue like the sky behind her flaxen head, shifted rest- 
lessly about, and they were shadowed; her lips were 
tremulous: thinking did not suit the turn of her 
mind. 

“ Yes,” said Frances, “ I know what you mean. 
In London, there is no time to think, there is such a 
lot going on. In the country one’s driven to think, 
there is nothing else to do; it is enervating, there is 
nothing to take one out of Oneself.” 

“ Taken out of oneself, Frances, that is the last 
thing I should want to be. I like to be in myself; 
right in, and nowhere else ! ” 

“ Dear me, what a happy woman you must be.” 

Among the butterflies to be accounted happy is 
great praise; the fluttering of the wings is a factor for 
hiding any soil or smudge on the down; no broken- 
winged creature is to be found among the dancers in 
the summer sunshine. Isabel did not contradict the 
speaker, both the women were engrossed by their own 
personal business; personal feeling is grasping, is self- 
ish, it is a despot which rules with a rod of iron. 
Isabel did not want to discuss herself, Frances’s keen 
eyes looked as though they might see a great deal; 
in self-defense Isabel tried to carry the conversation 
far off from herself. She was living, she had been 
living in a dream, and the last thing she desired was 
to be awakened. 

“ Do you like London best? ” 

“ No,” slowly, “ one wants a certain hard, strong, 


SUNSET. 179 

combative frame of mind for London. I could not 
bear to be ill or unhappy in London.” 

“ Do you know I thought once that you would 
live there? I thought you’d marry George Brand. I 
mean that Mr. Brand would marry you.” 

Frances was not an actress, she could never de- 
ceive a child; she looked what she felt, and that 
was a good deal; she felt so much that her lips were 
white. 

“ You thought that? ” 

“ Yes, I said so to John, but he declared that 
George Brand was not a marrying man, and he told 
me about the money. He is a nice, kind man. I like 
him, but I suppose John is right.” 

“ John is right.” 

“ He is a nice man,” she repeated this, and sighed. 
“ Don’t you like him ? ” 

“ Yes,” said Frances, “ I have always liked him.” 

u I sometimes wondered whether you were the 
girl ” 

“ I was the girl — and he has not,” this was a sop 
for vanity, “ has not forgiven me.” 

The words came out, she had not intended to speak 
them, but out of the fullness of the heart the lips 
will weakly blab. She was horrified to hear them 
and their significance; to her they were of mighty 
importance. Curiously enough they did not impress 
Isabel. 

“ Men change,” she commented, with a twitch of 
her dewy lips; “ they swear they will not change, 
and then it comes.” She looked up suddenly, trans- 
fixing Frances with the fire of her eyes, “ and one 
knows it will come, and one does not care.” 


180 


SUNSET. 


“ When it has come/’ and Frances’s voice was 
barely audible, “ one cares so much that one would 
die.” 

“ Die,” said Isabel; she dragged at her work and 
the thread snapped. “ To die, that is horrible; but to 
live a whole life when the change had come, that 
would be so long. To go on every day and to be near 
him, when he had no need of you; when he was tired 
of you; when he wished he had not loved you. When 
you were an incubus, a nuisance, a gene, a tie. Could 
you face all this, and do it? Could you want to face 
it and to do it? ” 

“ I am not cracked,” Frances said, startled, sur- 
prised, staring. 

“ No, you are not mad, then you do not care; you 
can’t care; if you do care, you are mad. That — 
that’s — the difference.” 

The difference was the cause that made Frances 
adopt a prosaic manner as Isabel turned tragic, melo- 
dramatic. 

How odd that the sound of Frances’s voice should 
act like a match and set Isabel on fire in a moment. 
How strange that she, of all women, should have a 
magazine stored somewhere out of sight. She be- 
longed to an emotional sex, with nerves ever ready 
for contagion. Bah! Frances would lend her ear to 
her comrade, but not her tongue in the future. 

“ I feel as cross as two sticks, soured and snappy,” 
Frances said, boldly, “ but I don’t think I’m an abso- 
lute lunatic. Belle, it hasn’t taken me that way. If 
he — George, I should say, — has changed, so, heaven 
knows, have I. Only George changed off and I 
changed on, so things are a bit awkward for me. I 


SUNSET. 181 

shall get over it. I want time, but I shall get over 
to the other side of it.” 

Frances’s manner would have calmed a Home 
Ruler; it wet-blanketed the subject, and if Mrs. Beau- 
mont had been likely to say more on a topic which 
has a fascination for her sex, she did not do so, but 
held her tongue and rethreaded her needle. Her lips 
settled back into their somewhat pathetic and childlike 
droop, her light curling lashes drooped on her cheeks, 
hiding her eyes. It was a relief to both women when 
Jane came in for the letters, and the threatened scene 
was averted. 

Frances got off to her room to dress for dinner, 
and though she had spoken with great hardihood of 
getting over an awkward position, yet she was well 
in that situation now; in the very heart thereof, and 
had so far got nowhere. 

And Isabel had noticed what was going on; it 
was humiliatingly evident that onlookers had seen the 
game. John had discussed it, — gratifying. Her 
weakness was not uncommon, it was a thing to smile 
at at first, and later, on charitable reflection, to pity. 
All her life she had been quick to detect, and swift 
to condemn any such female lapse as this, which had 
come in her way. 

She was the woman who had had a disappointment, 
and at whom her friends laughed together behind 
her back. She hated tongues, her own tongue and 
her neighbors’, cruel instruments of evil, malicious 
waggers, whose owners will not hold with bit or 
bridle; though they know of their all-potent power for 
harm. 

She had defended herself by a falsehood. She 


182 


SUNSET. 


had said that George had not forgiven her. He had 
forgiven as fully as he had forgotten. It was not 
money, not anger, not pride that stood between them. 
His feelings had failed, not from their lack of stead- 
fastness, but from her want of power; she had fallen 
short, not he. 

He had not thought of Frances at all; he cared for 
the girl whom he had married, and who had died for 
him, he wanted to defend her. Even to Frances he 
had defended her — through Frances she had wounded 
him, and Frances understood how he felt about it. 
He might have said, 

“ You may misjudge her, because of the money. 
No doubt some one has told you of her will. She 
made it when she was ill; she made it the week be- 
fore her poor baby girl was born. * Her great desire 
was for my happiness, she thought I might be led to 
marry unhappily. She was not phlegmatic, or cold, 
or calculating; she was passionate, and I had — not 
meaning it — misunderstood her. She had no cause 
to make a will like that — none. God knows I never 
cared for anything on earth as I cared for her.” 

George might have said this, just at the conclu- 
sion of that awful interview, she could fancy the 
very intonation of his voice, both the tenderness and 
the hardness of it during this imaginary conversa- 
' tion. 

There was one practical advantage in Frances’s 
position, — though just now it required an impartial 
mind to recognize it, — the position was hopeless. 
There was no future in it, it was not a thing to better, 
but to banish. 

Life had to be set on new lines, the past was done 


SUNSET. 


183 


with, the sooner Frances realized this the better for 
her. It is neither a happy nor a healthy occupation 
to brood, brooding never betters bad, it worsens evil. 
Had she shown more pluck, she would have had less 
cause for self-depreciation. A woman may not be 
able to help her feelings, but she can help her actions; 
if she can not help herself she can help her neigh- 
bors. Personal pity and self -sympathy never yet did 
the heartache of its bestower a grain of good; sym- 
pathy for others is said to be a tonic, and curative. 

To be sympathetic you must be observant; while 
you are self-absorbed observation is out of your 
power. 

Frances was inclined to pat herself approvingly on 
the back for her devotion to the ailing Fra. He had 
been very tiresome, and she had been exceedingly 
patient; but that was not quite the right sort of 
salubrious self-sacrifice, sentiment sweetened it un- 
wholesomely. 

Isabel and she met later at dinner, in a specially 
light-hearted mood; they were both on their guard; 
they wanted no more emotional dialogues, they dis- 
trusted their tongues, those traitors to their sex. Those 
over-assiduous servants of ours which accomplish, be- 
fore we have sorted and recognized, their subtle in- 
tentions. 

The evening Isabel devoted to music, and if 
Frances did not listen, it was not for lack of sweet- 
ness nor of power in the singing. The servants crept 
out from the back precincts across the hall to hear. 

“ It ud fetch the ducks off the pond,” the cook 
said, wiping her eyes. “ Nothing I ever heard like it, 
not even at a Penny Heading.” 


CHAPTER XIV. 


“ Oh, where art thou going, with your love-locks flowing, 

On the west wind blowing along this valley track ? 

This downward path is easy, come with me an’ it please ye, 

We shall escape the uphill by never turning back. 

“ Turn again, oh, my sweetest, turn again, false and fleetest, 

This way whereof thou weetest, I fear is hell’s own track ; 

Nay, too steep for hill-mounting, nay, too late for cost-counting : 
This downward path is easy, but there’s no turning back.” 

Christina Rosetti. 

The villagers at Sylvester were church-goers ; 
whether they went to please the parson, or to pro- 
pitiate their patrons, or because they liked it, was a 
question which people decided according to the bent 
of their own minds. 

Anyhow, they were in the habit of filling the little 
church both morning and evening during every Sun- 
day in the year; they were in the infectious habit of 
singing, hearing, and praying with apparent absorp- 
tion, and they were given to discussing. Mr. Hard- 
acre’s short sharp sermons, as though they were as 
interesting as the latest bit of gossip, or hearsay. 

There was a mystery, and a “ mayn’t have ” at- 
traction about church-going which filled Fra with 
desire to be there. He stood drumming his fingers 
on his nursery window, listening to the ding-ding of 

184 


SUNSET. 


185 


the bell, and lamenting that he “ weren’t allowed 
nothin’, and he wanted his Dad.” 

Sunday in London meant best frocks to Alix, and 
a walk with grown-ups in the park. Best frocks were 
a joy there, but here the wonders of lace, and silk, 
and needlework were an incumbrance, if she pursued 
her work-a-day, out-of-door delights. She found Way- 
field a paradise of pleasure, her legs had lost the trick 
of aching, though she was upon them all day long, 
the hours overflowed with an eternal variety of delight- 
ful employment, of easy work; no one was too busy 
to answer her questions. Dawson was a constant play- 
fellow, for did he not play games which he called work, 
in which she could join week in week out from sun- 
rise to sunset? He was paid for the play he called 
work, moreover, fortunate Dawson, who misnamed 
his life labor, as though he stitched in a little London 
room like Elizabeth. 

Alix’s roses grew and flourished in her cheeks, as 
did the tea-roses on the south cobb wall in the kitchen 
garden. She loved her life; it was no wonder she 
no longer fawned about her mother, but was primed, 
when she was to be seen indoors, with the everlasting 
request, 

“ May I go out again? Please, may I go out 
again ? ” 

To an unaccustomed, unsympathetic ear the ding, 
ding, ding of the church bell was aggressive. It was 
sweet-toned, and it came gently enough through the 
open Wayfield window; nevertheless, its persistency, 
its regularity irritated Isabel’s ears. 

She stood in her favorite place by the drawing- 
room window, looking down the valley toward the 


186 


SUNSET. 


distant western hills, at the foot of which the Sylve 
ran in its rugged bed seaward. The light on the land- 
scape dazzled her eyes, for the sun shone fiercely, there 
was not a cloud in the sky; it was the first of May, and 
a typical May morning. She dropped her eyes upon 
the border of gay flowers on the lawn; flowers beau- 
tiful and irresponsible; it would be best of all to be 
irresponsible in the sunshine, and not to have to 
listen to the ding, ding, dinging of the bell. 

Frances came bustling round the house from the 
garden and called to Isabel through the window. She 
was bonneted and gloved, as London only bonnets 
and gloves. 

“ That is the five minutes’ bell, I fancied you had 
gone, Isabel. I have to go to the stable for a minute, 
and then I shall be ready.” 

The fretting incessant bell clanged on, and Mrs. 
Beaumont turned herself away from the window, mak- 
ing her slow way to her room. Alix was standing 
at the top of the stairs, with the same sort of Sabbath- 
clad air as Frances had worn. Her curls were 
brushed till they waved and curled like a halo round 
her important face. Her scrap of a white frock was 
fine as gossamer, her shoes and shapely legs were irre- 
proachable, her little hands in tight suede gloves were 
folded round a massive church service, which was 
much decorated and clasped with brass. Her big 
white hat was set jauntily on her head. 

“ Make haste, mummy,” she urged, she was brim- 
ming over with dignity. “ Issabissa has lended me 
her prayer-book; there’s hymns in it, we’re going to 
sing Greenhill. I chose it for Mr. ITardacre, myself. 
Fra can’t come: he cried awful, but he can’t,” shak- 


SUNSET. 


187 


ing her head, — the misfortunes of others do not 
mar the joys, even of the nursery, — “ come all the 
same.” 

“ You little chatterbox,” her mother tweaked the 
child’s lace collar a little to the right, and smoothed 
out a crumple in the tucks. “ Do you know, you and 
your prayer-book will have to sit quite still for two 
long mortal hours? ” 

This reflection sobered Alix’s ecstasies. 

“ Please may I see you dress for church, mum- 
my? ” 

“ No, no, dear, go down into the garden in the 
fresh air and wait for me.” 

“ I didn’t know I might go out,” she said, and 
hurried off. 

Dressing for church is a very important part of 
the service. It took Isabel several minutes to fix her 
wide-brimmed and feathered hat on her light hair, to 
pin the malmaison on the bosom of her greenish gown, 
to put on her gloves, to find her prayer-book. Then 
she sauntered down. Alix was on the drive, scolding 
the terrier Luna for making as free with her finery 
as with her knock-about garments. He slunk down, 
he had no part in the seventh day’s individuality, and 
he resented its existence. Ding, ding, the bell had 
not done yet, that painstaking ringer was still at his 
work. 

“ Allie, wouldn’t you rather stay and play with 
Mr. Hardacre’s dog in the garden? You are too 
young to go to church, unless you really want to 
go.” 

This proposition was unsettling, Alix loved the 
garden, but here was the ’normous prayer-book; — 


188 SUNSET. 

and there was Greenhill, too, which she herself could 
sing. 

“ Alix, shall I stay with you? and shall we two 
have a good time together ? ” 

She hesitated, halting between two good things. 

“ I’d have to change my frock. I’m quite a clean 
girl for Sunday, you see, and ” 

Ding, ding, and it stopped; but there was to be 
no reprieve. Alix was to be a clean-Sunday girl still, 
— for just then Frances came through the shrubbery, 
panting, upon them. 

“ I got to the church door, Belle, before I re- 
membered you; in fact, the vicar sent me back for 
you. Do you mind hurrying? I like to be in 
time,” 

(( Why? ” Isabel walked quickly, she always did 
as she was wished. 

“ For the sake of — example.” 

“ Do you believe in example? ” 

“ Yes, I believe in example more than in any- 
thing in the world. If people have the wit to take 
it.” 

“ Do you chiefly set it, or take it? ” 

“ Don’t be snubby, Isabel. I believe you are like 
a man, cross at being dragged to church.” 

“ How long will it all take? Does he preach for 
hours? ” 

“ Ho, for ten minutes.” Isabel smiled, after all 
she rather liked a great long “ think,” when no one 
could interrupt her; when there was nothing which 
could distract her thoughts. Church gave her this 
opportunity. She would think, and she would not 
think down shady byways, where shadows lay and 


SUNSET. 


189 


thickened to gloom. She would keep her thoughts 
in the broad dazzling sunshine, howsoever long they 
might prove themselves to he. 

All through the service Isabel stood and sat and 
kneeled, with downcast eyes and lips that moved. Her 
sweet grave face, her beautiful eyes, her slight shoul- 
ders and tapering waist, the gestures of her hands, her 
soft pink cheeks, the turn of her graceful head, were 
all alike furtively examined, and ungrudgingly ad- 
mired by the fresh country lassies and laddies, the 
matrons and the men, the gaffers and the grannies 
who had an eye for the quality, and who com- 
pared this wondrous fine London lady to wax-work; 
which was the highest form of fairness that they 
knew. 

All the words which Isabel heard were familiar as 
were the chants and the hymns; they made no im- 
pression; they never broke in upon her reflections 
once. She took no count of the “ Amens ” or of the 
people; and the time she had tried to shirk rushed by 
very quickly. 

The sermon hour had come, the vicar had mounted 
a couple of steps and stood close by; this would be 
the quietest part of all the service for thought, Isabel 
would settle herself back in the corner of the pew; 
it was a fairly comfortable pew after all. 

She took no more interest in the vicar than she 
took in the gargoyle over his head; but his voice ar- 
rested her attention. She looked up at him, his hair 
was ill done, but his face was — was powerful — you 
could not see his old clothes under his surplice — and 
he looked strong. His eyes had light and depth in 
them, they were penetrating, dark, intense; his lips 
13 


190 


SUNSET. 


were firm, lie field up fiis head. He was manly, but 
it was his voice which had caught her attention. 

It was deep like a bell, like a bell it vibrated, and 
was not lost when he had spoken, being strong, earnest, 
alive. Because the voice was earnest, like an eager 
voice she knew; because of the similarity of that 
earnestness, Isabel heard it clearly, and she listened 
to the words it spoke. 

Fervent earnestness deadens and drives out lesser 
rivals; it cuts through opponents; it speaks, and 
surely it shall be heard. 

Earnestness forces its convictions; though ability, 
expediency, intelligence fail. 

She had heard many a sermon, many a cleverer 
and a more eloquent, many a better sermon; but she 
had never heard such a voice before. For a moment 
she looked round at the door, it stood wide open; the 
churchyard and the graves were flooded with sun- 
shine, but the church was dark; she would stay where 
she was. 

Then she glanced at her daughter who sat beside 
her, but whom she had forgotten, from “ when the 
wicked man ” till now. The little girl had been disci- 
plined from her cradle, she was a patient sitter, she 
was schooled to patience, lucky Alix. Even as an 
infant she had known as little as possible of the soft 
warm lullabies of arm service. A dainty berceau- 
nette had been prepared for the tiny fretting bundle 
of nainsook and valencienne, and she had had to make 
the best of it. Elizabeth never had had time for ex- 
tras, — arm service is a nursery extra. Alix had been 
promoted from her berceaunette to her high chair; 
there she had been perched while the nurse stitched; 


SUNSET. 


191 


very wearisome she had found it, but she learned that 
wailing did no good, so she took to playing, playing 
alone. She grew tired of her toys, now and again, 
and when she found life over-dreary she was pro- 
nounced naughty, and tucked safe out of the busy 
Elizabeth’s way in her dainty cot. 

dSTo wonder she was a good child in church. She 
had been trained for such offices. She sat like a 
mouse, thinking of the sunshine outside her prison, 
and looking nervously forward to the dropping of her 
threepenny bit in the bag. 

Behind her the school-children fidgeted and kicked 
and giggled: — self-restraint is not taught in cottages; 
nature is rampant there. If it is to be crushed from 
the little ones, it wants the weight of indifference in 
the guiding and the driving of the herd. The chicks 
reared under paid service are the ones whose individu- 
ality gets pressed out of sight, and whose “ goodness ” 
is a source of pride to all such as have had a hand in 
its manufacture. 

Isabel looked quickly at the fair demure face of 
her daughter; then Alix lifted her full clear eyes and 
met her mother’s glance. 

“ Am I good? ” she whispered, wistfully; and was 
hardly satisfied with her mother’s nod, it was so grave 
and quick. 

Among that queer antediluvian congregation Isa- 
bel sat and listened to the sermon, to every word of 
it, not because she wished to listen, not because her 
thoughts did not struggle to be free, but because the 
fervent earnestness of the speaker had got hold of her 
ear, and she could not escape. 

Any one could preach, any one could be a sign- 


192 


SUNSET. 


post, she knew it; she told herself this. And yet the 
commonplace words, the every-day ideas struck her 
as though they were new; they penetrated her mind. 
Later she would not be able to forget them, she could 
not shut her ears, she sat drinking them all in, as 
though she was as devout as the pure-faced village 
maiden opposite to her. 

“ Will you think? ” he was saying. “ Will you 
help me with your thoughts? I am talking of sin 
and of sorrow, they are neither of them strangers to 
us, these two are well-known among us, the two are of 
one birth, and we have known them from our youth. 
I am talking of our own sins and of our own sorrows. 
We are apt to speak of these twain, as though we might 
keep such possessions to ourselves, without sharing 
them with our neighbors. But what in all this great 
world is our own? what part of our sin and our sor- 
row is only ours? Can we live like a snail in a shell, 
apart from those of our household? Can we live 
apart in the world? Can we do neither good nor 
evil, affecting the life of none? You know that we 
can not do this. We speak, and some ear hears: we 
act, and every action has its consequence. I am 
looking on the dark side of our life. Our life is sad 
and it is hard, it lies with us how sad, how hard, how 
evil, how bitter it may at last become. Two paths 
lead through it, none are so young, so blind that they 
can not see the roads, and choose between them. Both 
paths are sad, both hard, both difficult to tread; one 
starts in sunshine, but it leads to darkness and despair; 
the other winds uphill to the light. One good; one 
bad; one right; one wrong; easy words to under- 
stand; though to choose between them be not easy 


SUNSET. 


193 


even at first, before we wander straying down the hill. 
You do not live apart, you will not choose alone, your 
choice has consequences, a sequel to live after it. Those 
whom you love will follow you, you will not walk 
the path alone; at first you will not be alone. When 
the darkness comes and the sorrow follows on the 
sin, then human love is weak and fails. There, in the 
evil road, you find yourself alone. You have lost 
those you would have died to save, it was you who 
looked along the downhill path at first, and who did 
not turn your eyes away, and shun it, you who made 
the evil easy, and the darkness sure. 

“ You, who listen to me and who are drawing near 
to the end, you, who have lived your lives and can 
count the three score and the ten of the years gone 
by; you know how you have used the time you had, 
whether for evil or for good, whether for blessing or 
for cursing. Life is hard, laborious, we can not for- 
get that we may suffer, we dare not forget we must 
die: the only certain thing is the end. Have you 
made hard life evil for your neighbor, fer your friend, 
for those of your kin, for your nearest and your dear- 
est ? Have you increased their burden ? 

“ Influence is a fruit of the soul, it is a possession 
which is ours for good or evil; how have you used 
it? Have you oppressed the heavy-laden, deepened 
the guilt, fostered the temptation? Which path have 
you chosen? Though faltering and staggering, 
though bleeding and weary, through fire and blood, 
maybe, you have kept to the uphill path. You have 
clung to the good, eschewed the evil, suffered for the 
right; and the end of that way is peace. You are 
blessed by your own knowledge, by remembrance, by 


194 


SUNSET. 


those who love you, by those of your household, by 
your neighbor, and by your friend. They are broad 
lines, the evil and the good; and you choose the good, 
no other thought in life or death could comfort you 
’ like this. 

“ Maybe, there are hearers among you who can 
not bear to cast their thoughts behind them, those 
hearers whose past has been injurious, wrong, and 
hurtful. Those who started down the dazzling evil 
way in goodly company, but who, when twilight came, 
called to their comrades and none answered them. 
Then darkness fell, for twilight turns to night — a 
night in which reproach, remorse, despair breaks loose 
and overwhelms mortality. Those wanderers turned 
back, — surely they must have turned, for they are 
here, — but it was late, and on their backward way, 
as they retraced their arduous track, they met with 
those upon whose backs they had laid burdens, whose, 
wounds they had deepened; those whom they had 
bruised; those who had followed in their track, and 
who perchance refused to turn back now, reviling 
them. 

“ Brethren, the past is no longer ours, it has been 
sad perhaps, or happy with the tempered happiness 
of humanity, but we have nothing to do with it; it 
is out of our hands, let the dead past bury its dead. 
Turn to the present, — that is ours, — it seems of small 
consequence to us, we set our eyes, our hopes, our 
mind upon the vast Future, — limitless, boundless, 
overflowing with possibilities, uncontrollable it seems 
to us; and yet it melts away in a manageable pres- 
ent. Do not dissect the past, do not tremble at the 
future, see to the present. To the moments passing 


SUNSET. 


195 


by, they are yours; to do with them whatsoever things 
are right, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever 
things are true. It is the present which we can guide, 
ay, govern too. Do not rush forward, pause and 
think upon the present. If it is evil turn away from 
it, cast it from you, free yourself from it. Do not 
stake anything upon the future, chameleon-hued 
phantom none can touch, the present is the clay to 
mold and master in your hands. The manageable 
present which is yours, your good and your evil, the 
good and evil of humanity. Minute by minute, hour 
by hour, day by day, live on, live on; a minute is so 
small a thing to master.” 

He ended here abruptly, Isabel thought ; she start- 
ed as he turned and the people rose. 

It was a sermon, and a sermon is a homily which 
has a way of striking us as the sort of thing, which 
we desire those of our household to hear and to profit 
by, so that the consciousness of faults may be driven 
home, and neighborly duties taught plainly. 

Isabel did not apply Mr. Hardacre’s preachment 
to any one, his earnestness was impressive, he meant 
what he said. 

A few moments later the longed-for time had 
come, and Alix was singing Greenhill with all her 
heart. Her little treble pipe had the same ring about 
it as the sermon; she was earnest, and the lady upon 
her either side held their tongues listening to her 
voice. 

When the bag came she had forgotten about it, 
and in the scurry the threepenny bit rolled out of her 
grasp, and hid itself among the hassocks in a most 
confusing way. Alix’s mother went down on her 


196 


SUNSET. 


knees to search for it, and when she arose and gave 
the scrap of silver to the distressed owner, Frances 
whispered, 

“ Would you like to come out now, Belle? ” 

“ No, why? ” 

“ You look ill.” 

Isabel shook her head, she was quite well, she said. 
When the trio got outside in the sunshine, Frances 
reverted to the subject of health. 

“ You are very pale, Isabel.” 

“ My dear, I was standing on my head in the pew. 
Pale! I wonder Pm not apoplectic.” 

“ You look seedy.” 

“ Do I? Pm like a man; church has a bad effect 
on me. John goes to church, but he never likes it. 
There is always a draught, or a smell; or it’s too hot, 
or it’s too cold, or it’s too long, or it’s too loud. It’s 
never too short. Sunday to a conscientious man is 
an infliction, which he sheds generously round.” 

“ Poor John,” said John’s cousin. “ How did you 
like the vicar? ” 

“ I— like him.” 

“He ought to live in church,” Frances said, as 
though she was an authority on the subject. “ He’s 
concise, and he means it. He is convincing.” 

“ It’s a pity,” she said. 

“ What is a pity? ” 

“ That he doesn’t get his hair cut, and wear good 
boots.” 

“ What? Why?” 

“ Because he likes you. I know he does. Life is 
all at sixes and sevens. Higgledepigglety, anyhow, a 
regular muddle like my Heine song, 


SUNSET. 


197 


“Ein Jungling liebt ein Madchen.” 

That poor parson has a bad time.” 

“ Oh, no, he hasn’t. He likes Sylvester.” 

“ He had better marry. Married men don’t have 
bad times — they care for nothing. I mean noth- 
ing but their cooks, and their cellars, and their 
clubs.” 

“ Isabel,” said John’s cousin, “ men must simmer 
down; they can’t live at a lover’s fever heat, — surely 
solid affection isn’t a thing to be sneezed at.” 

“ I am not sneezing. Of course I don’t mean any- 
thing nasty. One never means anything one says that 
is unpleasant, — if one is brought to book.” 

“ Isabel, you are looking wretched.” 

“ And I am feeling wretched.” She stopped on 
the road, and turned upon Frances. “ Do you like 
being preached at for ten minutes? Because I don’t. 
I am feeling a miserable sinner, and I don’t like it. 
Attend to the present, he said, manage the present; 
it is in your hands. Ah, it is easy to talk, easy as — 
lying. I hate the country, Frances; do you hear, I 
hate it! It is all so big, there is no foreground, it is 
dreamy, hazy,” she pointed to the hills, that rose one 
beyond another, all around the valley which they 
trod, and melted in soft blue horizon against the sky. 
“ Like the phantom future he talked about. There 
are no shops, no clothes, no people, nothing to dis- 
tract one from — from things. Who was it that said 
that clothes keep lots of women straight? An inter- 
est keeps women straight, a woman wants one simple 
thread of interest to hold to in her life: of course she 
does. Your humdrum domesticity down here would 
kill me, Francie; you must be different, you can bear 


1 98 


SUNSET. 


to be thrown in upon yourself and you don’t mind, 
but I do mind. I knew liow it would be if I came 
here, and so it is, — so it is.” 

“ I fink,” said Alix, there was silence now, in 
which the request which was upon her lips could at 
last be heard, “ I should like to hurry on, mummy. 
I want to see the bunny-rabbits, and Fra, and Mr. 
Dawson, before I have my dinner.” 

“ Run on,” said her mother, “ run on.” So Alix 
pushed the church-service up under her arm for safety, 
and her little light figure fled on at racing speed, and 
turned through the Wayfield gates a hundred yards 
ahead. Isabel had watched her all the way, again she 
turned to Frances. 

“ That child never comes near me now, except to 
ask if she may leave me. When she’s a few years 
older she won’t approve of me: she’ll snub me. 
Daughters turn and rend their mothers nowadays; 
and give them advice and laugh at their frocks. Our 
grandmothers weren’t treated like that, but the fifth 
commandment and that sort of thing is obsolete. I 
can picture the future, the real future, not the phan- 
tom,” she laughed a little, “ economizing somewhere 
in a suburb, with Alix as housekeeper, and pretending 
to like it. You don’t pretend, Frances, but I do. I 
have been so long pretending that I hardly know 
whether I have an identity. I have always loved 
sunshine and peace. For days, for weeks, I have 
never known a moment’s peace.” 

People complain sometimes that they get small 
sympathy when they ail, because nature has decreed 
that their eyes cannot sink in their heads, and that 
neither flesh nor color fail them; they do not look ill, 


SUNSET. 199 

and consequently their friends do not believe in their 
sufferings ! 

So a woman, whose voice is trainante, her ex- 
pression of speech conventional, her manner artificial, 
her face childlike, her toilet careful, is not often 
taken very seriously when she talks severely of her 
fate. 

If Frances had been concerned at her companion’s 
splutter of emotion, she was relieved now to get, as 
she thought, a clew as to its cause. 

“ Don’t worry, dear Belle, don’t look forward. 
Things will come all right. Both John and George 
are long-headed; in the autumn you’ll be back in 
Horton Street, and the business will be going strong. 
It is only a bother for the time. Poor Isabel, I had 
no idea you were really anxious.” 

They were at the porch door now, and Mrs. Beau- 
mont was looking at her hostess’s clean-cut face, upon 
the honest clearness of her eyes. 

Her fair head drooped, as though weighed down 
by the big hat she wore, and she walked slowly across 
the hall and up the staircase to her own room. 

“ I hope their visit isn’t going to be a failure,” 
Frances thought, as Isabel’s door shut with a bang, 
which certainly did not speak of peace. “ Another 
of my failures, after all. She is getting the blues. 
Mr. Hardacre was right; I must try and frisk her up 
again a bit; and I will ask John; I’ll write at once 
and ask him down, just for a day or two. The sooner 
he comes, the better.” 


CHAPTER XV. 


The rosy glow of summer 
Is on thy dimpled cheek : 

While on thy heart the winter 
Is lying cold and bleak. 

Heine. 

Ear down the vale of the Sylve lay the little ham- 
let of Cowley, and clustered round the gray bridge 
which spanned the river. 

It consisted of a few isolated cottages, a gabled 
inn, a school, and a barn-like building that, on Sun- 
day afternoons, served the villagers as a church. The 
Service which was held therein was taken single-handed 
by Mr. Hardacre, who as soon as his duty was over 
had to hurry back, like the over-worked man he was 
on his day of rest, to fulfill more praying and preach- 
ing duties at Sylvester. 

Thither, that lovely May day, he drove himself, 
putting up his pony and cart, while the service lasted, 
at the gabled inn, the “ Red Lion.” This inn was 
a more ambitious hostelry than a traveler would have 
expected to find, here in the wilds of Devon. 

But the Sylve was a good trout stream, and drew 
fishermen to it, who found their way to the “ Red 
Lion,” which throve and prospered between artists 
and sportsmen. That very afternoon a stranger was 
200 


SUNSET. 


201 


staying at the inn, the vicar saw him as he drove 
over the bridge. He was standing on the banks of 
the stream, watching the trout dart in the shadowed 
pools. 

When the service was over, and Mr. Hardacre 
went to the “ Red Lion,” to fetch the cart, he asked 
the ostler what sport the gentleman had had, and how 
much longer he was going to stay on and fish the 
stream. 

For the fisherman was still standing on the banks 
of the Sylve watching the trout dart in the shadowed 
pools. 

“ The missus hadn’t mentioned when he was leav- 
ing,” the ostler said. “ The sport he’d had, had been 
indifferent poor. He wasn’t seeming so much of a 
fisherman, as they’d thought from the looks of him.” 
The ostler spoke with depreciation of the tall, broad, 
erect figure, whom they both could see from where 
they stood. “ He be more like a painting-gentleman 
for wandering and moping, sir, that he be. The 
missus says, so far as she can see, he has come courtin’. 
And Fanny seed him walking with an amazing fine 
lady, down the lane one arternoon. She were a 
stranger hereabouts, but so pleasant. She stopped 
and spoke to the child, and admired the cottage and 
the clock. He’s been back and forward, back and 
forward, since you passed like a dumb beast in a cage. 
Ho doubt it’s courtin’ days, th’ lady has kep’ ’im about 
that she have, this blessed day.” 

The ostler chuckled to himself, he was no beauty, 
he was crumpled up with rheumatics and weather- 
beaten, but his missus would not venture to “ kep ? 
’im about,” he would see to that, he would. 


202 


SUNSET. 


Mr. Hardacre's pony was disciplined like his mas- 
ter, not given to waywardness, or to fits of tantrums, 
so when that master drew him up by a gateway near 
the copse, and getting out of the cart passed through 
the gate, leaving the steed to himself, Dobbin set to 
munching the short grass at his feet, and placidly * 
waited where the fates had placed him. 

“ Mind your own business ” is an adage much af- 
fected by the world, and admits of a broad construc- 
tion; the own business can be construed widely, or 
narrowly. Mr. Hardacre interpreted the proverb 
broadly, he minded whatever business came his way. 

Did not a great writer give, as a reason for her 
avowed infidelity, the statement that “ believers will 
not redress evil, they leave all responsibility to God, 
assuring themselves that they need run no risk of 
disagreeable unpleasantness, by personal interference 
with the ways of the world. What God permits, at 
that man need not cavil.” 

There is business and business; there are believers 
and believers, and some of these latter do not wash 
their hands of their responsibility; they consider that 
their life is not wasted if they have helped the good, 
and put a spoke in the wheel of evil. 

The vicar had no deep-rooted plan of campaign, 
he brought the simplest weapons to his aid. He had 
no horror of any poor frail man or woman, he only 
wanted to help his fellow-travelers, if it lay in his 
power to do so; and he thought this man by the way- 
side was in need of help. 

There was little he could do, but he did it. Air 
and light were foes to sin. He wanted to let light 
upon this stranger's position; to show him how tortu- 


SUNSET. 203 

ous and how difficult and dark was the road which 
he had wandered upon. 

As he approached the absent-minded young man, 
Mr. Hardacre stared at him, at his well-chiseled, open 
face, at his amiable and gentle mouth and his fair 
hair, at his stalwart head held up erect, and soldierly 
in bearing. The turf was soft, muffling the oncomer’s 
tread; he could have touched the vicar’s arm before 
he saw him. He did not start, but his glowing light 
blue eyes met Mr. Hardacre’s gravely. 

“ This hamlet Cowley is in my parish, sir,” the 
vicar was pedantic, old-fashioned in his manner, which 
suited his unconventional address, “ and you, I hear, 
are staying at the inn.” 

“ I am fishing here.” 

“ And have had but indifferent sport. I’m 
told.” 

The young man frowned. There were tongues 
here then, cursed tongues even here; all his life now 
he, who feared nothing else, must, at least, fear 
tongues. Even tongues that spoke truth charitably. 

“ I fish myself,” the kindly voice proceeded, “ and 
on my glebe land I’ve a pool or two, which it might 
be worth your while to try. I would not recom- 
mend my own, unless I was fairly sure of it.” 

“ You are very kind, sir,” stiffly. 

“ Here is my card, take it, and come ; I’m sure 
you’ll not repent it; though my bit of the river is 
some way off, six miles or so, beyond the village of 
Sylvester.” 

The courtesy of the offer was irreproachable; the 
young man recognized how ungraciously he himself 
was behaving; he had been a genial, good-natured, 


204 : 


SUNSET. 


easy-going man a year ago. Now, when this parson 
wouldn’t take “ no ” for an answer, hut pressed his 
hospitable offer persistently, Captain Bing gruffly con- 
vinced him that his invitation was more impertinent 
than pleasing. 

“ Any one here would point you out the way. 
Follow the course of the stream, and there you are. 
Trespass? No, I would tell Miss Blake, who owns 
Wayfield and is a near neighbor of mine, that I had 
given you leave. There is much intercourse between 
the villages, the people come to and fro continu- 
ally.” 

“ I am going away almost at once; ” this dense 
meddler was not easy to shake off. 

The speaker’s mouth was set grimly now, he was 
pale, his eyes were worn, and lines were set deeply 
about his lips. His beast-like pacing to and fro, 
of which the ostler had spoken, had left a mark upon 
him. 

“ I am glad to hear that,” a moment’s pause, “ very 
glad. I don’t want to do your landlord a bad turn, 
but if your plans are uncertain I should say ‘ go.’ 
Go, at once. The place is, oh, yes, it is beautiful ; but 
it is not healthy. There was a death there,” he 
pointed to a flowery thatched cottage, not a stone’s 
throw from where they stood, “ yesterday. There 
will be another death in that further house to-morrow. 
Fever, scarlet-fever, and a bad form of it, I fear, is 
raging here. Fve had to shut the school. It’s not 
a place to stay in now, I tell you plainly; I wouldn’t 
come within a thousand yards of it, unless my business 
took me.” 

Captain Bing turned his face toward Cowley, he 


SUNSET. 


205 


did not look as if the news were new to him, hut he 
looked grim enough. 

“ Now if,” pursued the parson, “ you would 
change your quarters to the c Half Moon 9 at Sylvester, 
you might do your fishing, and not incur any risks. 
So far we have no case of fever, and the inn is clean 
though it may he rough.” 

Mr. Hardacre was a little short-sighted, and he 
had a habit of looking with a straight intensity into 
the faces of those with whom he spoke, so that no 
trick of expression was lost upon him. But now he 
averted his eyes suddenly from that handsome manly 
face; he was no spy, and something had awoke in the 
young man’s eyes which he would not look upon. 

“ Think over what I have suggested,” he went on, 
turning to the stream. 

“ You are very good,” the answering voice was 
not steady. “ I will think about it; but just now I 
have letters to write; I must be going in.” 

There was no Sunday post at Cowley, Mr. Hard- 
acre did not say this, however. With his eyes on the 
ground he walked slowly back to his cart, and drove 
off quickly, for time was precious on the seventh day, 
without looking to the right hand or to the left. 

He passed an intersecting lane as he set out, a 
high-banked, flowery lane, plumed with long harts- 
tongue ferns and green with moss. And, as he passed 
it, his eyes were on his pony, but his lips moved. In- 
competent, weak, inadequate, unfit to stay a stream 
the mighty force of which can sweep away founda- 
tions of dear life, and strangle “ home ” and all its 
many intersecting ties. His sense of his own feeble- 
ness dismayed him. 

14 


206 


SUNSET. 


Along the plumy, sweet-scented lane the fisher- 
man came at quick strides; the listlessness and the 
grimness of his manner gone. He knew that he had 
caught a sight of a dark gown among the fresh greens. 
He knew too, with a fierce thrill of resentment against 
some power that be, that she, of all women on’ the 
earth, thought fit to pause, and to turn aside, and to 
hide like any guilty miscreant, until the parson went 
by out of sight. Unbearable, intolerable, shameful 
concealment, and yet what else was to be done when 
she was there, and he was here, and the light shone 
around them both? 

She looked as though she understood his thought. 
She leaned against a gate and let him come to her. 
Very beautiful she was, but worn and tired, for she 
had come quickly, and the day was hot. He looked 
further than her great, sweet eyes and her tender lips, 
he saw that she was agitated. He knew she had 
something that hurt upon her mind; something which 
troubled her, and which would therefore surely trouble 
him. 

“ All day, Isabel, not a word — but the l&tter ; — not 
a line — but that. I have waited. It’s dull, you 
know, at Cowley, very dull by myself without a word 
with you.” 

He spoke lightly, though his face belied him; they 
had not faced the end together, these two cousins, 
whither they were drifting. It was their nature to 
drift, it was easy traveling, they hated to be harassed, 
or annoyed, or disturbed. They could both of them 
think, but they hated to think; they wanted to be 
happy, it was a little thing to ask of fate. 

“ Isabel; ” what misfortune was coming to them? 


SUNSET. 


207 


She had not smiled or spoken; she was busy finding 
something in the pocket of her dress. She had a 
strange manner, so different to her gracious laughing 
self, a nervous quick distracted air which chilled him 
to the heart. “ What is it? Are you ill? ” 

She shook her head, she had got at her envelope 
at last ; taking it out she put it in his hand. 

“ There,” she said, “ I wrote it this afternoon. It 
is what I mean, exactly what I mean. I ought not to 
have come, but I knew you would wait and be sorry. 
I did not want to make you sorry, before you under- 
stood. Read the letter, I shall be gone in a moment, 
read it when I am gone. You have no one to think 
of, but I have,” she clasped her hands together like 
a vice, “ ties that hold me. I must think. I must; 
help me to think. I am taking things for granted,” 
she could read his face, and read it plainly now, “ but 
I knew it from — myself, and you are — here. I want 
you to think well of me, — if it was only me, I should 
not care, — but I am not alone, there are the others; 
and there is you, yourself. I must go, Eddie, I must 
go.” 

“ I can’t live without you, Belle.” 

“ Yes, but you can, you can forget, every one on 
earth can forget. If I died I should have to go, and 
it’s like — dying. If you ever cared for me really, if 
you believe I really care for you, say good-by; only 
good-by; — and help me to go back.” 

In another moment it was over, the brief scene 
between these two. She was thirty yards from him, 
and he stood with the letter in his hands on the 
road. 

It had been so unaccountable, so totally unexpected 


208 


SUNSET. 


an interview, that he was stunned. Long after her 
figure was out of sight he stood where he was. Very 
slowly he opened his letter, frowning to see how the 
paper shivered and trembled in his hands as he did so. 
It was not long, but over and over again in different 
words it repeated the same thing. 

Dear Isabel, sweet Isabel, gentle Isabel, no other 
woman in the world was so full of pity and of love. 
She shrank from pain, she shrank from hurting both 
himself and her. But, “ she loved him so well, she 
only could leave him.” 

All her life long she had been taught to please 
herself, and this was the way she pleased herself 
now. 

“ I went to church,” she wrote, " and I listened to 
the sermon, and it made me understand some things. 
You ought not to be here, it is wrong, please go. I 
must be lonely and dull, it is wrong for me to be 
happy, you must go. I must not see you any more: 
you are going to India soon, and you will find other — 
other — people. I shall try and get through somehow. 
Don’t think about the future, it melts in a manage- 
able present, the parson said that. Will you go back 
to London? please go to-morrow. If you don’t go 
far away, I am afraid I might see you again, and I 
mustn’t. Everything is wrong everyway; and I am 
the most wretched woman in the world. — Isabel.” 

When she wrote that, with all her soul she wanted 
him to go, and the very simplicity and helplessness 
and childishness of the words would, surely, move 
him. 

And he was moved. She had broken the barriers 
down, he could let himself go now. If she was the 


SUNSET. 


209 


most wretched woman in the world, then he was to 
the full as wretched a man. He had heard no sermon, 
and he had thought no thoughts. He would not stem 
the stream, he could not; and he wrote four burning 
sheets of love to tell her so. 

For hours he was writing, and later he dispatched 
a lad to W ayfield with the letter. His time was short, 
he would not waste it now. 

When dusky evening came he walked along the 
Sylve, and trespassed through the woods, and came 
out on the meadows, whence he could watch the 
twinkling lights of Wayfield at his leisure. 

“ It was like dying,” she had said ; nothing but 
death should take her from him now; she had fired 
the train, she had made the breach. Like dying? 
Ho, it was life, and he was lord of life. He could not 
leave her. 

The scent of the clover and the luscious grass 
crushed beneath his feet, rose fragrant to his nostrils, 
the cool air came in sighs against his face. Softly 
the church clock struck the hour, eleven chimes died 
down the misty valley. Nature was cool, fresh, clean 
on this May night, as he stood like a rock watching 
the Wayfield lights; no crowds, no men, no noise to 
mar her peace. 

The water rippled and rushed and roared among 
the stones; the sound was solemn in its monotony and 
calmed him. 

“ Sermons in stones and good in everything.” 

A sermon? Was he, too, listening, and driven to 
understand, and driven to thought? Go, she had 
said. Go, that was the one impossible word in the 


210 


SUNSET. 


whole world; anything else he could do for her, hut 
to go, that he could not. 

For weeks, for months they had played with fire, 
he and she : a fire of which they had no fear. It had 
1 glowed warm behind bars; and they lurked close to 
it, they plied it with fuel; they liked the glow and 
warmth. The bars were there: they heaped more 
fuel. Then it shot out its heat, and overleaped its 
boundary; the fire roared until it deafened, blazed 
until it dazzled, burned until it hurt. 

They knew whither the game was leading them 
now: she had said, Go. A word short, significant; 
the weight it laid upon him was intolerable. Go, the 
two wretched letters formed no meaning. He had 
not gone, he had come closer to her, closer to her, with 
something akin to desperation in his eyes. 

She might turn her hose of “ go ” — “ go-” upon 
the blaze, but it would take a mighty flow of words to . 
wash the fire dead. 

The lights were all out now at Wayfield except 
one, which still shone on, steady as a star. 

Go. And if he stayed just these four days before 
he sailed for India. Just four days to spend within 
reach of the sound of her voice and the sight of her 
eyes, and then to go. He could go then, but not now, 
not now. 

He walked a dozen paces nearer. It would not be 
so hard if he could see her again. 

The night was beautiful, calm, passionless. Only 
four days. She would forgive four days; he would 
go then, he would tear out his heart and leave her. 

They hated worry, trouble, perplexity and pain, 
these two, they wanted a good time. They had not 


SUNSET. 


211 


dreamed their pleasant easy road led to so stiff a 
fence. 

The light which burned so late at Wayfield was 
kept prosaically aflame by old Elizabeth, who was not 
easy in her mind about little Alix. The child was 
restless, starting in her sleep, and talking oddly of 
her real home and of fire, the fire that nearly burned 
her up in Norton Street. Once she screamed out and 
roused up, asking for a drink of water, and moaning 
that her head ached so, ached so. 

It was not until very late, as nursery lateness goes, 
that she fell into a quieter sleep, and Elizabeth felt 
justified in shutting her eyes. Her deaf ears were 
not to be trusted as sheep-dogs in sick-rooms. The 
old woman did not wake until it was time to rise; 
and, as she had not been disturbed, she concluded Alix 
had slept as profoundly as she herself had done. 

The little girl complained of nothing, not alluding 
to her fears and seeming much as usual. She was 
dressed quickly, and sent off to pay an early visit to 
Era, while Elizabeth hurried away to fulfill her mani- 
fold duties with her mistress. She brushed Mrs. Beau- 
mont’s flaxen hair, how long, how thick and soft it 
was; she twisted it, and garnered it upon her head 
with pride, and with exceeding care. Her mistress 
was absent, she asked no questions even when Eliza- 
beth volunteered that “ Miss Alix looked pale too, 
(London suited Mrs. and Miss Beaumont best after 
all,) and hadn’t had much of a night of it.” 

“ I hardly closed my eyes,” she said. Isabel was 
usually a talkative mistress, and would chat of many 
things; making the fidgety small toilet tasks a 
pleasure to her servitor. But that morning, as the 


212 


SUNS&T. 


woman remembered later, Mrs. Beaumont Hardly 
spoke at all; forgetting her desire to please which 
won her love, even from her over-worked de- 
pendents. 

The breakfast-room at Way field was a fresh, 
wholesome, homely room. The walls were brightly 
papered; the blinds were pulled up, and the curtains 
drawn right back, to allow of the presence of as much 
light and air as could be coaxed into it. 

The table was laid for breakfast; a silver urn 
hissed, the tea service was set on clean scrubbed 
boards, green ferns in white pots decorated the center 
of the table. Everything there was as clean and 
shining as an excellent maid, with a fussy mistress to 
back her, could make it. 

Frances was particular, she liked everything “ very 
nice,” she said; she could not bear to “ pig it.” She 
knew that to her mind “ cheap ” meant “ nasty.” No 
wonder the cottage, as an adjunct to love, meant more 
to her than it would mean to some women. 

Two breakfast cups of bread and milk were steam- 
ing before two high chairs, on which Alix and Era 
were respectively seated, waiting solemnly for the 
grown-ups to be ready to hear the thanksgiving; 
which an unaccountable vagary of adults deems 
necessary for none but the children to offer for their 
plain and daily food. 

Frances was behind the urn, but Isabel was, as 
usual, by the window, looking at the western hills. 

“ It is as warm as June.” 

“ Yes, as warm as June; but come, the children 
are waiting. No, Fra, wait one more minute; that’s 
a table-spoon. Belle, give him a tea-spoon.” 


SUNSET. 


213 


“ I can’t think why the children don’t have break- 
fast upstairs.” 

“ Itjs a treat to come down.” 

“ Nothing is a treat that comes con|tantly.” 

“ Say grace, Alix.” 

“ No, it’s Era’s turn,” said Alix, her childish sense 
of justice backed her refusal. 

“ Alix.” 

“ Don’t want no breakfast,” whimpered Alix, cov- 
ering her face with her hands, and dropping her tea- 
spoon on the floor. 

Man and child are alike imitative animals; 
Frances reckoned upon Alix’s example to draw 
decent behavior from Fra: her rebellion was a 
shock. 

“ I only says my grace for heggs,” said Fra, light- 
ly, shoveling in overlarge spoonfuls of bread and milk, 
as a means to an end. “ And, Allie, your curls is go- 
ing into your ’gustin’ bread-milk.” 

Alix began to cry aloud. 

“ You’re a naughty little boy,” she said, and 
sobbed. 

Then Isabel astounded them all. She got up and 
took the sinner in her arms. 

“ Don’t cry, Alix. Sweet, darling, my own, don’t 
cry. There is nothing in life worth crying about. 
Come and sit here, and leave your horrid bread and 
milk. Sit on my lap, and choose your breakfast. 
Here is honey, dear, and scones, and a big, big bit of 
sugar. No, no, Alix, don’t cry. I can’t bear to hear 
you.” 

Every one looked awkward over the little scene. 
Fra ate his breakfast, staring widely and talking con- 


214 


SUNSET. 


tinuously, so that the silence of his betters passed un- 
noticed. 

Alix curled herself up on her mother’s lap and 
nibbled languidly, shyly at a morsel of toast. Frances 
wondered. 

Isabel felt giddy for a moment, and then she re- 
membered that her dinner of last night had been a 
farce, that her sleep had been a farce, that her break- 
fast was like to be a farce, with that hot, parched 
throat of hers and dry lips. 

“ Pour away my tea, Francie,” said Isabel, “ and 
give me some milk. My nerves are all to pieces.” 

“ Your nerves! ” Even unobservant Frances saw 
that Mrs. Beaumont was white as the milk for which 
she had asked; she had liked that little gush over 
naughty Alix; her eyes were very kindly as they met 
Isabel’s. “ Are you feeling ill, Belle? ” 

“ Only my nerves.” 

“ As if anything could be worse. You poor dear 
Cockney, so you really are pining, and the country is 
as horrid as you feared. Mr. Hardacre believes you 
are suicidal; I know he does, he’s concerned about the 
boredom. I believe he’s afraid of a tragedy in his 
model parish. At his advice, really, solely at his ad- 
vice, I yesterday wrote to John.” 

“ You wrote to John! ” Isabel’s nerves were cer- 
tainly all wrong. Frances hoped fervently that John 
would come: she did not remember to have seen Isa- 
bel so moved by anything as she was at this min- 
ute. “Why did you write? I don’t understand. 
Mr. Hardacre, he — he told you to write? I don’t 
understand.” 


CHAPTER XVI. 


“We shuddered with unlanguaged pain, 
And all our hopes were turned to fears, 
And all our thoughts ran into tears, 
Like sunshine into rain.” 


“ And I am awfully glad I did write,” said 
Prances, vigorously, “it is time lie came when you 
lose your color and your nerve. I wrote and told him 
you were withering for want of him; that you lan- 
guished and pined; and that the responsibility of a 
widow was too great for me. I urged him to corns 
down, to start the moment he got my letter. I said 
that he must stay a couple of days now, while the 
weather is lovely, and the country at its best.” 

Isabel bent her head low down over Alix on her 

lap. 

“ He won’t come,” she said. 

“Won’t come? Why?” 

“ Mr. Brand is away, he is tied at his work.” 

“ Pshaw. Married men are tied to no one but 
their wives. I put the case strongly. If it is possi- 
ble he will come; and where there is a will there is 
a way.” 

“ It must be impossible. I tell you it is impossi- 
ble. He can’t, he won’t. How can he come? ” 

“ He can come by the six o’clock express. Unless 
215 


216 


SUNSET. 


lie telegraphs by noon, I told him that I should pre- 
pare for him, and that I should send to the station to 
meet him. He is economizing, you know; to save a 
telegram he will come.” 

She was purposely matter-of-fact, nerves were ab- 
horrent to her; of course, women like Isabel had a 
way of taking up health as a recreation when other 
excitement failed; she meant to rouse her by a man- 
ner so brusque as to be bracing. 

“ Ho, no,” quickly, “ it’s impossible.” 

“ He will jump at the opportunity.” 

Isabel laughed this time; Frances’s manner had 
taken some effect. 

“ I mean it,” repeated Frances. 

“ I know you do.” 

“ Isabel, you are annoyed with me for writing.” 

“ Annoyed? ” she repeated the word interroga- 
tively, slowly, heavily. 

“ Are you proud, Belle ? Don’t you like J ohn 
having to be sent for? ” 

“ Oh, I’m very proud,” she laughed again. “ He 
won’t come.” 

“ Time will prove. I would back my own opin- 
ion.” 

She was always ready to do that, and she would 
send a wire off presently to help her to be right. 

“ You wrote to the office? ” 

“ Yes, I know he goes there early on Monday; I 
remembered.” 

Mrs. Beaumont was relieved of the quiet little 
burden on her knee, for at this moment Hannah came 
to fetch the children away, and Alix was nothing 
loath to go. Her mother’s arm had grown hard about 


SUNSET. 


217 


her, and her mother’s hands were cold. Frances fol- 
lowed Fra out into the hall, returning in a few min- 
utes with a sailor hat on her head, and wearing gaunt- 
let gardening gloves. 

“ I must leave you, Belle. Monday morning is so 
busy. Housekeeping, when the butcher only kills 
once a week, and where such a. person as a fish- 
monger doesn’t exist, is no sinecure; especially if I 
must cater for a man as particular as John.” 

Mrs. Beaumont stood, a slight, slender, graceful 
figure at the window, looking at the western hills; 
her hands were behind her, in one of them she held 
a letter, held it tight and close. 

“ My dear, you do look so pale,” Frances said, in- 
voluntarily, 

“ I have a headache,” a sudden sharp pain across 
her temples prompted her words. “ I think I will go 
out.” 

“ Yes, do, there is nothing like the fresh air. I 
shall be about in the garden presently. Dawson is 
cutting a new bed, and I must guard the chicks from 
shears and Dawson’s temper, which isn’t sweet when 
he is extra busy.” 

Ah, if Isabel knew what failure meant, what head- 
ache meant, she would admire Miss Blake’s whole- 
some airy frame of mind, which was cultivated to 
crush a nerve-storm in its birth. 

Isabel had always a tinge of melancholy, a decep- 
tive plaintiveness in her face. She had it now ex- 
aggerated, striking, piteous almost. Yes pitiable, hut 
with the condescension of pity for the grief of a sad 
child ; whose trouble, though real to itself, is fictitious 
to its elders and betters. 


218 


SUNSET. 


“ You have over-biked and over-walked, Isabel,” 
Frances said, very gently, bracing did not seem to suit 
that face. “ You are very tired, aren’t you? Just 
potter quietly about the place with me this morn- 
ing.” 

“ Till the telegram comes.” 

“ Yes, yes. It should come by twelve o’clock. I 
shall give it till one. So as to be sure.” 

“ I will get my hat and come to you.” 

When she did get out to Frances upon the lawn, 
she was told that she must have “ pottered ” consider- 
ably over the sit of her trim gray veil, and her soft 
gray feathered hat, for she had been an unconscion- 
able long time getting into them. 

Absolutely motionless Isabel had been sitting in 
her room, sitting with blank eyes, holding a letter 
tightly in her hands. The faculty for thought had 
gone from her, but those sudden shoots of pain in 
her head made themselves felt, even through the stun- 
ning mental anguish suddenly come upon her. 

This was the present, the what had he called it? 
“ the manageable present.” There was but one thing 
in the world that she must not, could not, dare not do : 
she would not meet her husband. That was the pres- 
ent. How could she “ manage ” that? 

She was listening all the time, for words in that 
letter that she had read, only read once, came like the 
throbs in her temple, whether she would or no, and 
spoke to her. 

She left the children and the flowers, and paced 
the drive waiting for the telegram, praying that it 
might come, that she should be reprieved from this 
present, that the four long days might go by, the four 


SUNSET. 219 

long present days. The manageable present, for evil 
or for good, it was in her hands. 

The moments rushed by, raced into hours, and no 
one came; no telegram, nothing; then the lunch-bell 
rang, and Frances joined her guest, linking her arm 
in hers, chaffing her good-humoredly about her error 
of judgment. 

“ No telegram, you see, Isabel. I knew John bet- 
ter than his wife. He is coming. I have not killed 
the fatted calf in vain.’ 7 

“ A telegram may be delayed.” 

“ At any rate, we must prepare for him.” 

“ Yes.” 

If only some kind soul could help her in this prepa- 
ration. If some one would lend an ear, and give a 
helping hand to keep her steady on her feet, while 
her head throbbed and was so hot. She wanted help, 
some one who understood. The words in the letter 
came speaking like a voice in her ear. She could not 
“ manage ” alone, she was not strong. She could not 
think, she tried to form clear thoughts, and trying — 
reeled a little as she walked — the giddiness came back 
again. 

The children dined downstairs, and their care 
absorbed Frances’s attention. Alix fed like a bird, 
and was still peevish and heavy. Fra was over- 
excited and noisy; neither showed childish graces to 
advantage, and Mrs. Beaumont’s silence passed un- 
noticed. 

“ Dear Belle, go off and lie down quietly in the 
drawing-room, do,” said her hostess, genially. “ I 
will look after this couple till Hannah is ready for 
them; I will keep them out of your way.” 


220 


SUNSET. 


When Isabel had gone, as she did obediently, with- 
out a glance behind her, Frances set energetically to 
work at telling fairy stories. Fra was an interested, 
cross-questioning listener, but when the nurse came 
later she found Alix asleep. 

“ The child’s not well, miss,” Hannah said, “ she’s 
not herself. I don’t quite like the look of her, and 
so I’ve told Elizabeth,” 

The little girl was curled round on the window- 
seat. Frances put a cushion under her tumbled head, 
and fetched a shawl to wrap about her. 

“ I will let her sleep her sleep out, Hannah; and 
I’ll sit here till she stirs. She may wake up all right 
again, perhaps. Tell Elizabeth where she is, and 
don’t let Fra shout and wake her.” 

So restless was Alix that more than once her 
guardian addressed her, thinking she must be awake. 
But she whispered and giggled in a dream; sleeping 
on a full hour and more, while Frances brooded and 
mooded, hugging her heartache and driving hot stabs 
home without compunction. 

It was not surprising to find the drawing-room 
empty when, at length, Frances followed Isabel 
thither. It was not, to her turn of mind, altogether 
surprising to find that no one had been resting on 
the chesterfield, for the cushions were unrumpled. 

' Frances had never lain down in the daytime in her 
life, — except upon that one afternoon when she had 
found her pillow drenched with tears; that afternoon 
when she had realized that she was sobbing for a mate 
who was not willing to pair with her. 

That once she had lain prone; but Mrs. Beaumont 
was the sort of woman who lounged in big chairs and 


SUNSET. 


221 


loved to lean among downy cushions, and she had not 
done so; she had wandered off. It was natural that 
she should have gone, for Frances had been detained 
so long; but it was unsociable of her to stay away, 
and to be out of reach while some distant neighbors 
presently called at Wayfield. 

Distant neighbors who put up their horses, and 
asked to see the gardens and the children and the 
flowers, staying to tea and leaving reluctantly and 
apologetically, nearly an hour later. 

Twice Jane had been sent to look for Mrs. Beau- 
mont. She was not in her room, her bicycle was by 
the porch, no doubt she had gone for a walk; Han- 
nah had seen her cross the meadow and turn across the 
new bridge into the wood. 

She was in the habit of straying away, and coming 
home radiant, with her hands full of flowers. To a 
country lover, like Frances, these wanderings had 
seemed the most natural things in the world. 

How that Frances came to think about Isabel, it 
did seem odd that a woman, who seemed as much 
part of pavement as a street lamp, should be at home, 
and happy in a wild part of moorland Devon. That 
a woman who loved her fellows, should be eager to 
spend many hours out of the twenty-four, in the great 
loneliness of an unfamiliar country-side. 

Frances looked for the second time at the clock. 
It was close upon six. She had heard the carriage 
drive off to the station half an hour ago, while she 
was replenishing the vases with fresh flowers in honor 
of John. She certainly thought Isabel would have 
seen to the flowers, hitherto she had always been glad 

of an excuse for fresh flowers. 

15 


222 


SUNSET. 


Very soon John would arrive, and there would he 
no wife to welcome him. Of late Isabel had become 
a great walker; it was possible, nay, it was probable 
that she had walked to the station to meet him. 

Husbands and wives did not always show to the 
best advantage in public, and though to the onlookers 
very little mutual tenderness was discernible, no doubt 
that they understood one another, and that these pair 
were as fond as more demonstrative people. 

It was a comforting hypothesis, and Frances want- 
ed comfort, she was a little (unaccountably) on the 
fidget. Alix looked unlike herself. 

Pray heaven, Miss Blake was not starting nerves. 
She stood alone by the cold tea and the half -emptied 
plates, and thought, — neither of the sea, nor of the 
Antipodes, nor of the boy upstairs, nor of herself. 

Her brown study was interrupted by her daily 
visitor, who took Frances’s presence as a matter of 
course, it seemed, for she saw him look round for her 
absent guest. 

His welcome was not cordial, for the man was 
like all other men, inconstant, faithless. Led hither, 
thither, anywhere, nowhere by a face or a voice. 

“ Mrs. Beaumont is lost,” said Frances, unkindly. 
“ She has been out the whole afternoon. You gen- 
erally know all about her. Have you seen her? ” 

“ Ho.” 

I suppose, Frances thought with disdain, a man 
must get up a fancy for some one. This man imag- 
ined he liked me, until a greater than I came in his 
way. It was annoying to see his face, pale from 
brow to chin. — At any rate he was no oyster, he could 
feel. 


SUNSET. 


223 


“ Unfortunate man/’ said she aloud, “ I am sorry 
for you, for it was your last chance of a tete-a-tete. 
I did as you suggested, I wrote to John. He is 
coming by the six o’clock train.” 

“ Does she know? ” 

“ Yes.” 

“ When did she go out? ” 

“ After lunch. She did not say so, but I imagine 
she has gone along the station road to meet her hus- 
band. I wish she had not gone, I wanted her to rest. 
Resting is like a sermon, fatiguing in process, stim- 
ulating later. She wouldn’t rest, and John will think 
her pale. She is pale, and Alix is seedy too. I am 
rather ashamed of them both, but it isn’t my fault; 
they over-do themselves. They are never indoors. 
I suppose custom is everything, and they are over- 
done with oxygen.” 

She looked with some appeal at Mr. Hardacre, 
but he was standing back to her; he had gone to 
the window, and his eyes were on the ridge of 
hills. Those hills behind which the sun set, and 
which attracted Isabel to the window night after 
night. 

If she made a little effort after a joke he never 
saw it, and when he slowly turned at her suggestion, 
“ that she could not talk to a back,” there was some 
new thing that she had never seen about his face, at 
which she looked again uneasily. 

“ I beg your pardon,” he said, his gravity was so 
great as to be infectious, “ I was thinking.” 

“ You may think in a ci viler attitude. There is 
nothing in me, I hope, to dispel thought.” 

His eyes lighted up for a moment. 


224 


SUNSET. 


“ The carriage will be back in a few minutes,” she 
said, looking again at the clock. 

“ Yes, if the train is punctual.” 

“ The express is always punctual.” 

“ To be sure,” he was absent, “ it must be here 
before long. What is that ? I heard footsteps in the 
hall. It’s Mrs. Beaumont.” 

“ Please go and see.” 

He did so at once, and came back with blank 
eyes. 

“ Ho, it is Sam come for the letters.” 

Prances rang the bell sharply. 

Jane, go up to Mrs. Beaumont’s room, and see if 
she has written any letters for post. She always for- 
gets to put them in the hall.” 

Jane came back with a sealed, but unstamped, let- 
ter in her hand. 

“ I suppose this is to go, ma’am, but it wants a 
stamp.” 

Prances looked at the direction. 

“ Ho, it needn’t go. Put it down on my bureau, 
and leave it, Jane.” 

She turned to Mr. Hardacre. 

u It is only a letter to John. She must have 
written it before she heard that he was coming. I 
will keep it for ” 

She broke otf, the sound of wheels interrupted 

her. 

u Here they are,” she said, u the train must have 
been in to the minute.” 

“ I’ll be otf,” said he; “ I can go through the con- 
servatory, if I may.” 

She promptly opened the door thither, giving him 


SUNSET. 


225 


her limp, cold hand; he held it in a strong and sud- 
den grasp. 

“ If any occasion should arise in which you might 
want help, send for me. Remember, send for me.” 

She was not responsive, though she was woman 
enough to feel, and to appreciate the strength of the 
hand-clasp. Ah, he must deplore his susceptibility, 
he was a man who would not willingly hurt the feel- 
ings of a fly, and perhaps he did not want to hurt her 
by his defection. 

He erred; it was good to know, as she knew, that 
only one man in the world could wound her; and he 
had shattered his power by the using of it. 

She wanted help from no man, and her head was 
in the air. Yet before Mr. Hardacre had finished his 
few words with Dawson in the shrubbery path, he 
heard his name called, and turned to meet Frances, 
who was standing on the lawn summoning him back. 

“ The brougham has come home empty, Mr. Hard- 
acre. John has not arrived, nothing has been seen 
of Isabel. I can’t think how everything has gone 
topsy-turvy like this. I want to know if there is 
another train by which he can come? ” 

“ There is no other London train to-night.” 

“ It was stupid of me to conclude he was coming. 
There are so many things that might have kept 
him.” 

“ Did you only conclude? Did you not hear? ” 

“ I only concluded. I told him to telegraph if he 
could not come. I wrote last night, and I tele- 
graphed this morning.” 

Mr. Hardacre had followed Frances back to the 
drawing-room. 


226 


SUNSET. 


“ It is nearly seven o’clock/’ she went on, tapping 
her foot on the ground, and wishing the vicar would 
say something; it was no tragedy, only tiresome. 
“ Now, where is Isabel? ” 

In the silence which followed this unanswerable 
inquiry, the front door-bell rang a peal, and the next 
moment Jane brought in a telegram, which her mis- 
tress opened and read aloud. 

“ Impossible to come , very busy ; only now received 
letter and telegram , am writing. — Beaumont .” 

“ There,” said Frances, “ that means my good din- 
ner is to be wasted. I tell you what, Mr. Hardacre, 
you had better come and eat it. Isabel will,” here 
she looked a second time into the rugged face oppo- 
site, “ by the by, how odd of her to be out now, just 
now when John was expected. ‘ Too busy to come; ’ 
‘ too restless to be in,’ these couples are enigmas. We 
all think we shall do so much better ‘when our turn 
comes. Ah, I expect it is easier to be the wife of 
the future, than the wife of the present. You are 
looking as though I was blasphemous. There is noth- 
ing sacred in modern matrimony, surely.” 

“ Don’t,” he said; he had got the fluttering tele- 
gram into his hands, and he had torn the paper into 
shreds. “ Don’t laugh, — not now. I have to tell 
you something of which I — I, myself, hardly dare to 
think. I may be wrong. Pray God I am.” 

Again he had turned from her, and was looking at 
the hills. Her ready tongue was silent; her whole- 
some keen eyes were raised to his; she did not mean 
to take alarm, and yet his voice was not reassuring. 


SUNSET. 


227 


“ Well? ” 

“ There is a fear upon me. I can’t avoid forcing 
you, too, to share it.” 

“ Well? ” 

“ When Mrs. Beaumont came here, I met her, 
you remember; Bra was ill, you sent me to the 
station. She wasn’t alone, she had not traveled 
alone.” 

“ What do you mean? She had the nurse and 
child.” 

“ Yes, but they weren’t with her. When the train 
came in, I saw she was not alone: she did not know 
me, but I knew her.” 

“ Not alone? ” 

“ No, she had a fellow-traveler. She told me he 
was going to Plymouth, that she had seen him on the 
platform at Exeter. He did not go to Plymouth : he 
came here to Cowley. He was there yesterday, they 
have been together almost every day. You don’t be- 
lieve me? Drive your thoughts back. Review the 
last ten days. No, I won’t arouse your conviction, — 
suspicion is enough. I hope to God suspicion is 
enough.” 

The blood slowly forsook Frances’s cheeks and 
lips: she knit her forehead, her eyes were wandering, 
shifting about the room. 

“ He is a tall man,” she said, speaking interroga- 
tively, quickly, “ with blue eyes ; fair, like Isabel ? 
Her cousin. I know; her cousin, Eddie Bing.” 

“ Yes, perhaps; he was not unlike her. A fair 
big man. I spoke to him, I watched him, there was 
nothing evil in his face, I thought, — nothing but the 
unrest and the pain.” 


228 


SUNSET. 


Frances looked helplessly into Mr. Hardacre’s 
face. 

“ What can we do? ” 

He had a plan mapped out in his mind, and he was 
ready with it. 

“ I will drive off at once to Cowley, I am wanted 
there to see a sick child. I won’t be longer than is 
absolutely necessary. When I come back we may 
have to act; till then, keep up appearances: remem- 
ber the great importance of appearances. You must 
not be pale, like this; you must drink some wine; 
you must pull yourself together, and steady your 
nerves. You must not seem to be worried.” 

She looked as though she had got her death- 
blow. 

“ What can I say? There is — dinner.” 

The great factor that forces our self-control is food 
after all. The recurrent meals regulate our lives. 
Decently, and in order, morally and physically com- 
posed, we must appear in public three times a day. 

“ There is dinner,” she said, “ and there are the 
servants. I can invent something. I can lie,” — he 
was close to the set, darkened face that he loved; she 
was taking the suspicion hard, as though ’twas fact. 

“ Keep up appearances,” he said again, he had his 
hand upon the open door; “ remember what a breath 
of suspicion may mean. I am not afraid to leave 
you. You are not a practiced hand at lying; you 
don’t invent by nature, but to-night you must do 
what you can.” 

“ I will. You will drive at once to Cowlev.” 

“ Yes.” 

“ I shall come along the lane to meet you.” 


SUNSET. 229 

As he went down the path through the hot-house 
among the flowers, he set his teeth. 

“ The suffering it entails,” he muttered to himself, 
“ always on the innocent; — strange, unfathomable de- 
cree. Always on the innocent.” 


CHAPTER XVII. 


But my very worst friend from beginning to end, 

By the blood of a mouse, was myself. 

Rudyard Kipling. 

As soon as Mr. Hardacre had gone, Frances rang 
the bell. 

“ I have had a telegram, Jane,” she said. “ Mrs. 
Beaumont is not coming — until to-morrow. It is tire- 
some, and you must tell cook she needn’t send up 
dinner to-night, as we shall dine with Mr. Hardacre 
at the vicarage.” She smiled pleasantly at Jane. 
“ We really can’t eat Mr. Beaumont’s dinner without 
him. You needn’t sit up, no one need sit up for us. 
I shall take my latch-key. By the by, pick me a 
bunch of mignonette, and put it on the hall table; I 
want to take some to Mrs. Dawson, Dawson says she is 
so fond of giant mignonette.” 

She went out of the room, and ran upstairs hum- 
ming a tuneless little song as she ran. 

“ Miss Blake singing! It is a pity she seemed so 
fond of it, for she certainly could not sing. She was 
as white as a linen table-cloth,” said Jane to herself. 
“I suppose it’s true as gospel that she’s after the 
widow man, as they say. Well, there’s nothing 
gone wrong anyway. Miss Blake singing! and Miss 
Blake going up of her own will to see they there 


SUNSET. 


231 


noisy children. She is a pleasant lady for all her 
fidgets.” 

Jane did # not object to the pair of little ones. 
They had a nurse a-piece, and so, for once, children 
did not mean work. She went off to gather the 
mignonette gladly, for was not Mrs. Dawson her 
bosom friend ? 

Keep up appearances? That meant to go through 
the routine of the day mechanically, to do as usual, 
though all the doings were duty now, not done from 
inclination. 

Frances went in to see Fra and to wish him 
good-night, as was her habit. The little boy was woe- 
begone, he was sitting in his cot with a finger in his 
mouth. He did not respond to Frances’s smile. 

“ She’s whipped Allie, she has,” pointing in the 
direction of Alix’s quarters. “ Issabissa did, ’cos she 
bited my leg. She’s gone a beddy-by. She’s awful 
naughty.” 

“ Fra, you have been quarreling? ” 

“ Yes, I are been.” 

“ Miss Alix served Master Fra something cruel,” 
said his protectress. “ But there, she isn’t well, poor 
child.” 

“ When she is herself, she is a pattern to every 
one, Hannah.” 

“ If it’s stitch, stitch, stitch all day, illness is of no 
account.” 

Fra stuck a bare leg out of bed, marked with the 
bruise of little teeth. 

“It hardly hurted,” he said, stoutly. “ Don’t 
like Alix to cry. I have got,” it was warm in his 
palm, “ a choc for her.” 


232 


SUNSET, 


There would be less weeping, no doubt, if larger 
people made little of their injuries, and concerned 
themselves to lighten punishment, as the boy had 
done. 

Frances kissed him, tenderly too, but realizing 
that there are losses worse than death ; thinking with 
a fierce compassion of the little sick sinner, who lay in 
the pink spare room across the passage. 

“ Play trains , don’t go. Don’t be busy. Daddy 
weren’t busy.” Even if the little heart had not been 
loyal, the memory of his father was kept alive by the 
constant mention of his name. “ He weren’t never 
too busy to play trains .” 

So trains were mechanically played, but with none 
of the usual references to “ daddy over the sea.” 
There was little fun in it, somehow it fell flat, and 
Fra did not wail after his playmate that night when 
she left him. 

Elizabeth was sitting by a lighted candle, for the 
curtains were drawn to shut out the rousing daylight ; 
she was sewing rapidly. Alix was asleep in her white 
bed. Frances went over to her side, bent down and 
touched her tangled flaxen hair with her lips; how 
the head burned, how fast and how hard the > little 
girl drew her breath. 

She went back to the nurse. 

“ That child is ill,” she said, in the woman’s ear; 
she had to speak in a loud whisper to make sure of 
being heard, and her voice was harsh. “ If she has 
been naughty, it is only because she is ill.” 

Poor old Elizabeth looked worn. She had re- 
gretted the punishment herself, but what could other- 
wise have been done? She was proud of Alix’s pretty 


SUNSET, 


233 


behavior, she had been ashamed before Hannah. It 
had been difficult to think before she acted. Easy 
to act when she had more work to do than she knew 
how to accomplish upon her hands; and she had had 
a baddish night into the bargain. 

I, is the first person singular, after all. 

Infinite patience comes only with infinite love, 
and infinite love is not shed over all the little ones 
that are thrown upon the waves of this troublesome 
world, 

Elizabeth did not know that Frances’s eyes were 
fierce, she did not know that hot tears welled up and 
dimmed the fierceness suddenly, when Alix moaned 
in her sleep, 

“ I think the air tires her, miss, maybe it’s too 
strong, too natural, as one might say, for a Londoner. 
It certainly doesn’t suit Hiss Alix.” 

Again Alix moaned sharply, and half waking her- 
self by so doing, set to crying and whimpering, as 
though great trouble had come to her in her dreams. 

It was horrible to Frances to hear her. She went 
back to her bedside, and wrapping a blanket round 
the little trembling restless figure, she took her in her 
arms, walking to and fro the room, soothing and 
quieting her in a very passion of tender pity, that 
seemed subtly to communicate itself to Alix, and to 
comfort her. Elizabeth stitched, wondering. 

“ This lady ought to have a dozen children of her 
own,” she thought. “ She is, so to speak, a mother 
born; I did not know Miss Blake was that sort.” 

Perhaps, after all, Frances was not doing, u as 
usual.” Never again would she do, and feel, and 
think “ as usual.” 


234 


SUNSET. 


When Alix was asleep, Frances came back to 
Elizabeth. 

“ Put that work away,” she said; she had a mas- 
terful way with her that was very different to Mrs. 
Beaumont. “ It isn’t good for Miss Alix to have a 
flaming light in her eyes, and you want rest. If that 
child isn’t better to-morrow, I shall send for the doc- 
tor. Don’t let her go near Fra till I have seen her, — 
and — Elizabeth — we are dining out to-night — at the 
vicarage, you needn’t wait up; I will see that some 
one attends to Mrs. Beaumont; it will be all right.” 

There was a tremor about her own hands that 
Frances distrusted and reviled, while she donned her 
hat and Scotch cloak. She was angry at the pallor 
of her face, it was her business to keep up appear- 
ances, not to carry that deadly face about with her. 
She was a genuine person; she had never acted on 
her own behalf; but upon that evening she played her 
part pluckily. 

In her life of easy sailing through prosperous 
waters no gales had fallen foul of her craft, she had 
experienced no buffeting of seas. Lately she had 
what her world laughed at, she had had a disappoint- 
ment, the sort of disappointment that inclines its 
recipient to turn sour, acid; and to look with a wry 
face upon her neighbors. 

Nothing on earth is more unwholesome than a 
disappointment. Other women made ambitious matri- 
monial plans, — when they succeeded there was clap- 
ping of hands, congratulations; no one was a penny 
the worse, some people were many pennies the better. 

There are women and women. Frances had made 
a plan, not ambitious, certainly, except for happiness, 


SUNSET. 


235 


— and it had fallen through. There was bitterness, 
mortification, over and above the real trouble. Such 
a failure seemed in itself to have constituted a storm, 
it was but the beginning of the gale. 

Our life-storms do not come to us as tidal-waves, 
and do their work all at once. No, — breaker after 
breaker rolls on before the wind; not two nor three, 
but many seas, dashing upon us one upon another; 
giving the surge-swept travelers scant time to recover 
strength before the recurrent onset of the waters. 

“ Each single struggle has its far vibration, 

Working results that work results again : 

Failure and death are not annihilation, 

Our tears exhaled will make some future rain.” 

For a moment, on the threshold of Mrs. Beau- 
mont’s room, Frances hesitated. Should she go in and 
look? By the one look, she might judge. 

No, she could not, would not believe evil until the 
faith was proven. She would judge nothing, no one. 
There was time enough to go there later, she believed 
nothing. She wrote a note to Isabel, putting it on 
the hall-table in case the poor misjudged woman should 
be near home after all, as she passed through on her 
way out. 

Then she walked down to Dawson’s cottage with 
her bunch of mignonette, and gossiped about flowers 
and the crops, strolling leisurely through the village, 
nothing restless about her but her eyes, which swept 
the country and the roads far and wide; searching 
and researching every point of the landscape which 
came to view. 

It was a cloudy evening, and rapidly growing dark. 


236 


SUNSET. 


No one was about as she turned out of Sylvester, upon 
the Cowley Eoad. She left off dawdling then, and 
walked sharply along. 

Dark clouds drove slowly across the stormy sky, 
ragged clouds through which stars shone. The noise 
of the Sylve, brawling and gushing, would drown the 
sound of wheels for which she listened. 

It was a lonely spot where at length she halted, 
under the shadow of some elms beside a gate. She 
did not mean to be seen by any wayfarer, she was out 
of sight there. Her mind was not stunned, it was 
stimulated, it worked incessantly. She looked back, 
her memory was keen; she looked forward, her im- 
agination was vivid. Never for an instant did she 
think of her own personal share in what was com- 
ing, but she did think of her personal share in the 
past. 

On such a night darkness was better than light. 
She was glad that Mr. Hardacre could not see her 
face; she had wept like a child, with her forehead 
down on the bar of the gate. No one could see or 
could hear the weakness of it — and there would be 
no weeping permissible later. She came out into the 
road when she heard approaching wheels. He saw 
her shadow and drew up. 

“ Good or bad ? ” she asked, mistrusting the mo- 
ment’s pause. 

“ Bad.” 

She had known it, but she drew a quick breath 
like a sob. 

“ Will you drive me back? ” 

“ Yes.” 

She got up by his side, and he drove on. 


SUNSET. 


237 


“ They left Cowley this afternoon together. They 
drove to Exeter, to catch a train — the people under- 
stand — at Exeter. He called her his wife. Spoke 
of her as such before them all. The letters are to go 
to Plymouth. I have his address here.” 

In the heavy silence he was conscious that she 
wrung her hands together, and put them up to cover 
her face. 

“ What are we going to do? ” hoarsely. “ Go 
slowly, slowly. I must think before I get back. What 
are we to do? There, I know we can do nothing. 
There was prevention — prevention; but no — cure.” 

He did not speak, and walked his pony as she 
bade him. 

“ John,” she said under her breath, “ John and the 
child. Good God! How could she, how could she? 
Poor wretched Isabel. Poor Isabel.” 

She did not speak again, and he was deadly silent 
until they reached the vicarage gate. 

“ I am coming in with you,” she said. “ I can’t 
go home just yet.” 

She waited outside while he drove round to the 
yard; and had some talk, at which she fretted, with 
his groom. 

She would have gone alone to the world’s end 
with Mr. Hardacre, forgetting his sex; he was a good 
friend to her, no more; reliable, reasonable. With 
the reaction of finding the truth, his dependableness 
and reliability seemed to have gained in value and 
in size. 

He took her into his study, put a match to the fire, 
for she was shivering, cold in body as in heart. He 
drew his arm-chair close to such blaze as there was, 
16 


238 


SUNSET. 


and bade her sit there. Then he fetched wine and 
cake, standing over her while she ate and drank. 

“ Wait there,” he said, “ get warm and rest, you’ll 
want all the strength you can collect. I must leave 
you for a little while, I have some arrangements to 
make before my housekeeper goes to bed; I will be 
as quick as possible, but I must go.” 

When he was gone Frances could not rest, she 
moved about. “ To suffer and be still ” is not natu- 
ral. She was extremely natural. 

For the first time she had found herself cheek by 
jowl with sin; open, undisguised, selfish sin as it looks 
to those who suffer for it ; not veiled, nor cloaked, nor 
misnamed, but frank, bare, and brutal too. 

She had seen the beginnings of such ends from 
afar; she had looked with unconcern, with unsympa- 
thetic, but indifferent eyes upon the beginnings of 
such disastrous ends. In her set in the world, laugh- 
ter and life were easy. There was a limit put on the 
ease and on the laughter; it was loose to a certain 
point — a point that Mrs. Grundy tied in a hard fast 
knot. Here and there some one in her recollection 
had passed the boundary, and had become socially 
dead. Never before had Frances found herself cheek 
by jowl with such a one. No personal pain could 
compare with the anguish of mind that had fallen 
upon her. 

She pulled herself together when the vicar came 
back, but he saw how it was with her. It was hard 
for him to see one, whom he would shield from a 
rough wind with his very life, standing there in the 
full blast of the gale, and be unable to shelter her at 
any point. 


SUNSET. 


239 


“ I am going by the midnight train to Exeter,” 
he said. “ I am going to see him. I must see him. 
I will see him; he will not refuse to hear me.” 

Such people* as those whom he would follow, had 
been by all decree, from all time, socially dead. 
The one great object in Frances’s limited world, — the 
world who proudly call themselves “ the world ” — had 
been to get out of their way, — to leave them alone. 
They were awkward people to know; even to have 
known. 

“ You think me wrong. No. I am right. I be- 
lieve I am right. I must do as I believe right, though 
you shake your head. As soon as the office is open 
to-morrow, you must telegraph for your cousin. If 
I am not back you had better go to the station and 
meet him. Shall I write? It would save you some- 
thing.” 

“ No, no. I must tell him.” 

People face to face with calamity are dumb. They 
don’t discuss the pros and cons of a tragedy, until 
they have recovered from the shock of realizing its 
existence; they do not use the subject for dissection, 
gossip, or analysis until it is an old story; — in some 
cases it is never so used. 

“ If I had only” — she broke off, “if? Life is 
choked with ifs. Mr. Hardacre, if I had ever thought 
of anything except my own wretched affairs, I should 
have seen what you saw, known what you knew.” 

He loved her, and to love is to credit with all 
excellence. Her clear eyes looked straight, level; 
never cast to the gutter, nor soaring to the sky. 

“ I tried to open your eyes,” gently, “ but I loved 
you more than ever for your blindness.” 


240 


SUNSET. 


“ Blindness? I hardly heard what you said. I 
have been eaten up with myself.” 

“ I knew you were in trouble/’ he said. “ Will 
you tell me? ” 

He discerned her feelings, she wanted to tell him. 
She was unstrung, and for all her bravado she was a 
thorough woman. She was ready to tell her trouble, 
to cry, and to confess. She felt her weakness. She 
wanted a prop stronger than herself. She was over- 
whelmed, one breakdown might help to steady her 
for the misery that was coming, and though he shrank 
from hearing, yet he repeated, 

“ Will you tell me? ” 

“ It is an old story.” 

“ Tell me about — him.” 

“ He used to live here.” 

“ Yes, I know, I know whom you mean.” 

“ As boy and girl we were fond of one another; 
but he was poor, and I sent him away, I was afraid 
of poverty. He married a rich woman. She was 
Fra’s mother, she died. A month ago he went to 
Melbourne. If he married again, by the Will he 
lost his money, and I thought it was money, only 
money that stood between us. Before he went I 
asked him to marry me, and he said, no. I told 
him that I was no longer afraid; and he didn’t want 
me, morally and physically he shrank from what 
I said. He had changed, he had cared for her, 
and her Will had hurt him; had hurt her memory, 
tinged it all with regret. It embittered every thought 
of me.” 

“ I care for nothing in the world so much as you,” 
Mr. Hardacre said, boldly. “ I asked you to marry 


SUNSET. 


241 


me, and you said no. Morally, physically, I have 
seen you shrink from me. I understand.” 

“ Ho, you don’t understand. I have thought of 
no one, cared for no one, pitied no one but my ignoble 
self. I have let everything slide. I have not put 
out a hand to save Isabel — poor Isabel. He wanted 
her to come here, he urged it. I remember now — 
both he and you — who were not self-engrossed like 
I was, saw what the danger was, and you both looked 
to me to pull her through. And I — I could have 
done it. Yes, I could have done it. If I had had 
the will.” 

She covered her face with her hands. 

There was none who found it in his heart to say, 

“ I know where best 

The iron heel shall bruise her, for she leans 
Upon me when you trample.” 

Her wet eyes, when they did look up, were lifted 
to Mr. Hardacre’s face. 

“ I can see now, now, when it is all too late. I 
can see the significance of what she said. Poor thing, 
poor thing. She said so much that I might have un- 
derstood. Instead of which, I went the wrong way 
•and drove her, I drove her to it: to-day, I drove 
her to this, to this. I always please myself, and no 
one else. I like to govern, and I governed her. I 
had no thought, but of myself. My eyes are open, 
now it’s over, and the mischief is done. Even now, 
I am discussing myself. I am full of myself. It is 
your fault, you look as though you were sorry for 
me.” 

She stopped her walk to and fro, he was silent. 


242 


SUNSET. 


“ Words are giants when we abuse them, pygmies 
when we use them,” and he had none at his com- 
mand. 

“ I must go home, Mr. Hardacre. You will have 
to start in an hour. You have made up your mind 
to go? ” 

“ Yes.” 

“ You know best, but if ” 

“ As you said just now, life is choked with ‘ ifs ’ 
and ‘ buts.’ Because what you said is true, I shall 
go.” 

A loud peal from the front door hell startled them 
both. They looked at each other. Mr. Hardacre 
went out into the narrow passage, and opened the 
door. Frances heard the sound of a woman’s voice, 
then the door hanged and the vicar came hack into the 
room. 

“ The nurse has sent for Mrs. Beaumont, Alix is 

ill.” 

Frances got up, straightened her hat, rubbed her 
face with her hands, with an unrealized idea of ef- 
facing the lines; and turned to go. 

“ What shall I say? ” 

“ As little as possible. Keep everything quiet so 
long as you can; tongues are, if possible, to be silenced 
now.” 

“ When will you come back? ” 

“ To-morrow — if — if I don’t come, I will write.” 

“ Telegraph.” 

“ I will do both.” 

The house was astir when Frances returned. Jane 
was up, and her mistress ordered her off to bed. As 
soon as Frances had crossed the hall she could hear' 


SUNSET. 


243 


the sound of crying, a monotonous wail, pitiful in her 
ears. At the door of the pink spare room, Elizabeth 
stood waiting for her mistress. 

“ Miss Alix has woke up and is crying for her 
mamma. She won’t be pacified, and she won’t stay 
in bed; I have been more frightened about her 
than ever I was in my life before. She don’t seem 
to know me, nor to heed me. It’s ‘ mummy, 
mummy, mummy,’ till I do think she will make 
herself downright bad. I never knew her to do such 
a thing before. I thought Mrs. Beaumont had 
better see her, but now you’ve come, you will do as 
well.” 

And it really seemed that Frances did as well. 
Perhaps, there was natural comfort in the clinging 
of arms, in the giving and the taking; for when 
Alix’s head lay on the broad kind shoulder, when she 
felt the strong protection of her guardian’s arms, the 
wailing stopped little by little, and she lay with wide- 
open dry eyes, trying to be good, and Frances’s heart 
was soft and warm again. 

All night Frances sat with her, soothing and com- 
forting her. She sent Elizabeth off to bed else- 
where, and took charge of the sick child. She did 
not lie down, nor take off her dress. Alix hardly 
slept, she wanted something perpetually. She 
wanted to be carried, she wanted to go back to bed, 
she wanted water, she wanted a u cool bit ” on her 
pillow. She never, thank God, wailed again for her 
mother. 

When the birds began to twitter, and the morning 
breeze rustled the ivy round the window, Frances 
knew the dreaded morrow had come. She brushed 


244 


SUNSET. 


her hair and made her toilet as soon as it dawned, 
such robust health as hers wanted no consideration. 
She could draw upon her store of strength as she 
needed it. Her physical strength might be of some 
use to her, though her moral had failed. 


CHAPTER XVIII. 


But at length the feverish day 
Like a passion passed away. 

Longfellow. 

The breeze that rustled round the window blew 
from the south-west, and grew in strength as the light 
grew, driving clouds before it that gathered thickly 
across the valley, and beat in a soft swish, swish against 
the window-panes. 

Alix’s hot face looked odd on the white pillow. It 
was not natural, eyelids and lips were swollen, and 
her breath, hard, fast, loud, could be heard across the 
room. She watched Frances with feverish eyes, and 
she asked for something perpetually: she, who had 
learned so very long ago, to beg for none of those 
small things which she so greatly desired. 

When Elizabeth came back to her post, she saw 
that whatever had been wrong yesterday was not 
mended to-day: the little girl was certainly no 
better. 

Frances gave the woman certain disquieting in- , 
junctions, and then went off herself to fetch the doc- 
tor, who lived just beyond Sylvester in the White 
Cottage. She had had a way of passing that house 
more often than was necessary, and looking at it with 
her head a little on one side. The hallowed associa- 
245 


246 


SUNSET. 


tion of the White Cottage was not the reason why 
she herself went to fetch Dr. Pullen; she had, at 
this moment, forgotten that he was living in George 
Brand’s old home. 

Two dusting-maids were talking fast, hut in sub- 
dued voices, as their mistress came down into the hall. 
Jane stepped forward, and addressed Prances. 

“ If you please, miss, Mrs. Beaumont is not in her 
' room, her bed has not been slept in. I thought for 
sure she’d been sitting up with Miss Alix, but 
Susan ” 

“ Had not any one told you that Mrs. Beaumont 
went away yesterday? She went away in the after- 
noon.” 

Prances’s face checked Jane’s curiosity, but her 
eyebrows rose and she stared. 

“ I hope there is nothing the matter, miss,” she 
said. 

“ I hope not,” gravely. Prances walked to the 
open hall door, and, then turning toward the alert 
women, gave her orders. “ Ho one is to go near the 
pink room until the doctor has been. Tell Hannah 
that neither she, nor Master Pra, are to leave their 
room until Dr. Pullen has been; I am going to fetch 
him.” 

“ It’s pouring rain, miss. Sam’s here, shan’t I 
send him? ” 

“ No, thank you, I will go myself. Yes, it is rain- 
ing, but don’t shut any windows, keep them all open.” 

There was a twitter of voices, like the bustling 
twitter of a flock of birds behind her, she could hear 
it as she walked away. Her head was held very high. 
It was new to her to feel that she did not want “ to • 


SUNSET. 


247 


look the whole world in the face/’ hut something with- 
in her forced her to do so. It was new to feel afraid 
of tongues. 

She went quickly through the village, leaving a 
note at the White Cottage; on her way home she 
turned into the little post-office; the Sylvester people 
began their day early. Frances wrote her telegrams, 
and gave them to the girl behind the counter, who 
read them with great interest. 

There were three of them, all identical: the first 
she had addressed to John at the club, the second to 
the office, the third to the little house in Norton 
Street. One of them must find and bring him. She 
had written, 

“ Come at once . Urgent. Wire the train . — 

Blake” 

“ They can’t go for a quarter-of-an-hour,” the girl 
said, sympathetically. “I’ll send them the moment 
the line is open. It’s a nasty day, such a change after 
all the lovely weather.” 

There was no likelihood that John could arrive 
before six. All day he would be uneasy and per- 
plexed; he would be anxious. He would need prepa- 
ration; it would be merciful to turn his mind to 
trouble before he was brought face to face with the 
letter, which lay awaiting him on Frances’s own 
bureau. 

It lay like a blot beside a vase of flowers, she had 
looked at it and left it there. 

She was within her own gates when a note was 
put into her hand by the vicarage factotum, Fred. 


248 


SUNSET. 


“ Mr. Hardacre has gone off on business, miss; 
and he left this letter, which you were to have first 
thing in the morning.” 

The rain pattered down on the paper as she read. 
It had been written just after she had left him. 

“ Monday night. 

“ One line before I go, for I am full of Alix. 
There was scarlet-fever in a cottage where Mrs. Beau- 
mont sheltered, one day in a shower of rain. It was 
the woodman’s cottage beyond Cowley-on-the-hill. I 
saw him to-night about his child’s funeral, and he told 
me. You will be afraid for Fra. I shall give direc- 
tions that a room must be got ready for his nurse, and 
for him. Send them to the vicarage as soon as you 
get this. He will he out of the way, at any rate, of 
any future danger; if danger there should be. Every 
care shall be taken of him. 

“ Yours faithfully, 

“ W. H. Hardacre.” 

She put the note, with a distinct feeling of relief, 
into her pocket, one tangle of her mind smoothed out; 
and went back to the pink room to await the doctor. 
When he came he was not reassuring; he feared, al- 
though he could not say certainly, that Alix was 
sickening for scarlet-fever. She could not have run 
any definite risk of infection here; there was no sin- 
gle case in Sylvester. 

It was necessary to take all precautions, and to 
treat Alix as though the confirming rash had already 
appeared. The preparations meant hard work for 
Frances. 


SUNSET. 


249 


She prepared an orthodox sick-room far off at the 
end of the airy passage; she put forth all her energies, 
and took up carpets and moved furniture. She dead- 
ened the alacrity of her mind by the labor of her mus- 
cles. Thither she carried Alix, establishing herself, 
with a cotton dress or two by way of wardrobe, and a 
vast store of Condy and carbolic, in the little dressing- 
room hard by. 

Her orders were given from her window; until 
she had seen Fra and Hannah go off in the brougham 
to the vicarage, she held herself aloof. 

Fra looked round again and again, and waved his 
hand with a beaming smile at the face which watched 
his departure. When he had been told that he was to 
go away, and that the doctor had come to see Alix, he 
had wept and refused to be comforted. 

For once before he had gone away and the doctor 
had come,- — he remembered it all in a vivid flash, that 
came and hurt, as suddenly as it would go, — and when 
“ daddy ” had fetched him back, there had been no 
mother, anywhere. 

Fra had searched for her in every room; he had 
broken his father’s heart by his searchings. He had 
gone through the house dragging George by the hand, 
and whispering at every fresh threshold, “ Muvver’s 
hiding, muvver’s hiding; ” before he rushed, laugh- 
ing, into the room to search nook and corner, each 
curtain and cupboard in the ridiculous, inconsequent 
way that she, herself, had taught him. 

Gradually, the eager certainty of finding what he 
looked for had failed the boy, and he had grown 
grave and earnest at his game. The house was big 
and the rooms many, he had looked diligently, hurry- 


250 


SUNSET. 


ing more and more, out of breath with haste and ex- 
citement. When all his ardor and longing failed to 
find her, tired out he had climbed up into his father’s 
arms, and cried himself to sleep. 

So the “ doctor coming ” meant black bits of his 
bright life to Fra. For though in time he was shown 
the place, — quite a new place, — that his mother had 
found in which to hide away from him; and though 
he often took flowers there, and prattled to his father 
while together they arranged the roses upon the hid- 
ing-place, yet the game was different. The hiding 
and the finding was not the same, as when she had 
frolicked out and chased him. Caught him in her 
arms, and kissed him hot and close, for all his strug- 
gles. 

Poor Fra, he liked that sort of hide-and-seek the 
best, and so he lay and cried, becoming good as gold 
and saying “ hush ” when there was any noise, and 
asking a hundred questions about poor Alix in a 
breath. He cheered up over the packing though, and 
tender-hearted Hannah let him drive his wheelbarrow, 
filled with his toys, along the lobby, bumping down 
the stairs, across the hall. The interest of the perils 
cheered him up. Children’s pleasures are fraught 
with trouble to their guides and guardians, Hannah 
never curtailed the little foolish, innocent joys because 
her back ached, or her head pained her. Her love 
was of the royal sort, 

“ It blesses those who give and those who take.” 

Frances looked down upon him from the landing 
upstairs; her smile responded to his, but it is only 
the smiles of childhood which are of the pure original 


SUNSET. 


251 


genuine stock after all. Yesterday she would have 
said that nothing should part her from the boy, until 
she put him into his father’s arms. Times change, 
she was glad to see him go, he would he in good hands. 

She turned back to the little white bed beside her. 
This was the place where she was wanted now. 

Frances’s strong hands were soiled and bruised 
with manual labor, but she laid one tenderly and 
lightly on Alix’s forehead. 

“ Is it aching, Allie? ” 

A little hand, frilled round with lace and delicate 
nainsook, came up and touched Frances’s cool face 
gently; but it burned like a coal of fire. 

“ Yes, aching all over,” she said, “ aching every- 
where. Move my pillow, please.” 

Poor little girl. Aching everywhere, it was much 
as the hearer ached. She had never known before 
what trouble meant, never till now. 

All that day Frances devoted herself body and 
mind to Alix; she did not save herself, there was a 
great deal to be done, and she scrimped none of the 
work. Ho mother’s love could have done more for 
the poor little girl than Frances. 

Elizabeth did not seem capable of concentrating 
her attention upon the nursing, she was always by 
nature and habit a jack-of-all-trades. She was not 
likely to shake herself free of nature or habit then, 
for she was uneasy, preoccupied, and she watched 
Frances surreptitiously; pointing out her own sus- 
picions by not referring to Mrs. Beaumont, nor asking 
any questions. She was deaf too, but she was fond 
of Alix, Frances would not banish her from the sick- 
room, but she would do the work for both. 


252 


SUNSET. 


If sin brought such days as this in its train, then 
sin was a very ugly thing. Did the innocent always 
suffer for the guilty? was there no escape from suf- 
fering somewhere? If those people who sinned, only 
knew of the pain. If they could but know. If they 
could but think. 

If sin really meant misery, then, perhaps, the 
vicar, who devoted his intelligent mind and his ener- 
getic faculties to the rooting out of the seedlings of 
evils, was not wasting his time. 

A telegram had come from John to say that he 
should arrive by the six o’clock train; so Frances 
changed her dress and went in the brougham to the 
station to meet him. The strain she had put on her 
physical strength had told on her, her knees shook, 
her lips were stiff. They had reached the station be- 
fore she was calm, before she was ready. 

She sat in the carriage waiting, the train had 
thundered in two minutes ago. Her face told part of 
her tale, and struck a cold fear into the traveler’s heart 
when he saw her. 

John had no belief in feminine wisdom. Any un- 
easiness that he had felt when he received Frances’s 
summons, he had quelled; or at any rate he had en- 
deavored to quell, by putting it and its necessity 
down to feminine nerves, feminine wit, feminine 
emotion. 

His journey had been inconvenient, hurried; if he 
had worried at all, the worry had not saddened, it 
had vexed and annoyed him. He chose to believe it 
unnecessary. 

Some men seem to possess a feminine streak in 
their natures, which make the sex fairly comprehensi- 


SUNSET. 


253 


ble to them. John was manly through and through. 
Straight, fearless, honest, selfish; with a firm convic- 
tion of man’s physical, intellectual, ay, and of his 
moral superiority. 

J ohn had married a beauty, — because he liked the 
best of everything, and he had married so amiable a 
woman, that he had not been made to understand that 
she was not “ happy in her lot.” He did not look too 
close; people saw flaws when they looked too close, 
and he mistook her amiability for contentment. 

He liked the best of everything, he wanted a clever 
wife; Isabel was eminently frivolous, and she would 
not work what brain she had. 

It never struck him that a frivolous woman suffers, 
when she is transformed into a domesticity, which is 
dull. It had never struck him, that if frivolity had 
attracted him, before the “ picturesque gateway to the 
commonplace estate ” was passed, it would not con- 
tinue to attract him later. 

He had counted no costs. He did not understand 
that she could have her own individual tastes, that 
accessories, which he considered paltry and trivial, 
were necessary to her happiness; he did not under- 
stand that she worked her brain to her own satis- 
faction. 

He had never gathered that Britannias, as well as 
Britains, prefer freedom. 

He had had a marital way of grumbling at her, 
which he had not thought it necessary to check. He 
loved her too, and fretted at himself for wanting what 
he had not got; the grumbles were at fate, though 
directed at her. She had not checked him. Check- 
ing was not in her line, and he had no idea what 
17 


254 


SUNSET. 


an alienating method growling in man, or dog, be- 
comes. 

Life is not so gay a thing that we can pass the 
growlers by, unheard; we have, most of ns, a crow 
to pluck with fate, and might give out a bay to back 
the growl; and reach high heaven with uproar. But 
those who have a mind to keep merry strain at no 
gnats, and make no wry grimace, should the swallow- 
ing of camels be incumbent upon them. 

The merry ones are the plucky ones, after all; for 
no mortal ever yet forgot that tragedy begins, sur- 
rounds, and ends the path of their life. The growlers 
and the grumblers are sore let hindrances to the 
strength, and to the fortitude of their neighbors. 

John had strained at the gnats, the little prick or 
sting had teased him sorely. How would he face the 
blow prepared for him? 

Tragedy was to come, as it comes too often, un- 
looked for, unprepared for, unreckoned with. He 
had no dearth of courage, no lack of self-control be- 
hind his sharp, nervous manner. He gave his orders 
about his portmanteau, and got into the brougham, 
remarking upon the drenching downpour of thick 
rain, as he took the seat beside Frances. The carriage 
drove off, and she had not spoken at all. He watched 
her all the time. 

“ You wanted me? ” his voice was hoarse. “ I am 
here. What is it that you want ? ” 

“ There is bad news.” 

“ From whom? From Brand? ” 

“ FTo, no; from — home.” 

“ Some one ill? ” 

“ Alix is ill.” 


SUNSET. 


255 


He drew a quick sigh. 

“ What is the matter? ” 

“ Scarlet-fever.” 

u Isabel has not had scarlet-fever.” 

Frances for the first time lifted her haggard eyes 
to his. 

“ There is bad news,” she said again. “ It is not 
Alix, she is — only — ill.” 

He was watching the unsteady muscles twitching 
about her white lips, with a faint cold sickness which 
he could not master. 

“ Isabel, poor Isabel.” 

“ Frances, don’t. You torture me.” 

“ I must — torture you,” she was working her 
hands together, and wringing them. 

“ She is dead. That is what you have come to 
tell me? ” 

“ Yes — she is dead, it is like death, but worse than 
death. Oh, God. I don’t know how to tell you? 
Don’t you know? I said the news was bad. Don’t 
you understand? ” 

His livid face belied his words. 

“ I don’t understand.” 

“ She has gone.” 

“ Gone where? ” 

“ She has left — you. Left Alix. Left us all. 

Gone.” 

“ I don’t believe it. How dare you tell me such a 
lie as this? Unless I hear it from her lips, by God, I 
won’t believe it.” 

She had got the letter in her hand, she had taken 
it away from the bureau, and had brought" it to give 
to him; and now she gave it. His palsied hands 


256 


SUNSET. 


betrayed him, the paper shook, he broke the seal and 
read. 

He sat quite still, the silence was broken by the 
fall of his quick, hard breath. He became conscious 
himself of the labored respiration, strove against, and 
hushed it. 

Neither of them spoke. What could she say of 
such a visitation? It was not of God, but of man. 
No one could help him. He had to face his lot alone, 
as he must go alone to face that second death; kind 
death, which sympathy, and tenderness, and love sur- 
round. There was no such alleviation in this grim 
death that came to lie in his bosom; none at all. 

John met the blow that had come upon him like a 
brave man. He did not bow his head, he held it up. 
He did not revile; he caught his tongue behind his 
teeth and held it in a vice, even when, through his 
stunned brain, he drew in the full import of the evil 
which had befallen him. 

And the evil was done by her, whom he had chosen 
out of the whole world to be flesh of his flesh, heart 
of his heart, to love and to cherish till death did them 
part. The words of the marriage service flowed into 
his mind, he had hardly thought of them since his 
gala wedding-day. 

u With my body I thee worship;” he had sworn 
it. And the worship had — cooled: and the cherish- 
ing — what of that? 

He wanted the best of everything, and he had 
meant to give the best. If he had blinded himself 
before, he saw now. On himself he poured contempt, 
malice, even a dull sort of fury; but still he held up 
his head. 


SUNSET. 


257 


These were her words, — words of the wife whom 
he had chosen, — to whom he had meant to be an 
exemplary husband, at the head of a model house- 
hold; — and they were the last words she would ever 
say to him. 

“ You are coming,” she wrote, “ and I can not 
meet you. I can never see you again, Eddie loves 
me more than you do. You never understood. He 
wants me, and you don’t care. Be gentle to Alix. I 
am ” 

She broke off in her sentence, and did not sign her 
name. 

His gentle, smiling, amiable wife. She had felled 
him, in her pretty writing, to the ground; as a 
butcher fells an ox. She had never spoken a rough 
word to him in her life, and yet she had not shrunk 
from this; not — not for her child’s sake. How cruel 
she must be. 

Frances crouched back in the carriage, waiting 
for, but shrinking from the questions which must 
come. There was no oath, no storm; nothing but 
words that came like knives, which cut the hearer as 
they cut the speaker. 

“ This note was written yesterday. Read it.” 

She did so. 

“ Had any one — suspicion? ” 

“ I had none.” 

“ And you were with her here? ” 

“ Yes.” 

“ And you knew nothing? ” 

“ Ho. I might have known, but did not.” 

“ You might have known, but did not? What do 
you mean? ” 


258 


SUNSET. 


“ She was unstrung, J ohn, she talked strangely. 
Now that I look back, I understand. But I was self- 
absorbed, full of my own affairs. I hardly listened.” 

“ How was it? When was it?” 

“ She went yesterday. We thought you would 
come. The man was near us, here in Devonshire.” 

John’s large, white, right hand closed suddenly 
like a vice; again Frances heard him breathe. Slowly 
the hand relaxed and silence came. Then he spoke, 
and his voice broke. 

“ I thought,” he said, “ that she was happy. I — 
I,” suddenly he bowed his head and wept, — beating 
his hands together. Then Frances tried to comfort 
him. 

“ Don’t, John, dear John, don’t, don’t. God for- 
give her.” 

Using the simple words and simple thoughts that 
come to people, who are beside themselves with anguish. 

The carriage turning into the Wayfield gates com- 
posed him instantly, he was rigid again and calm when 
they alighted. 

Jane was waiting in the hall with a telegram. She 
was grave and important, the servants’-hall knew all 
their betters knew, — and even more than that, — by 
this time. John felt her scrutinize him curiously; 
there were few people but Frances to say “ Poor John, 
dear John,” from their soul, as she had said it. 

The telegram was from Plymouth, and ran as 
follows : 

“ Have followed them to Plymouth. She has been 
taken ill. I am remaining. Too late to catch post. 
Will wire again early to-morrow. — Hardacre .” 


SUNSET. 


259 


For nearly an hour the cousins were together, most 
of that time was spent in thought, but now and again 
they spoke to each other. 

He asked her quick questions, which she answered 
slowly, no pain could be saved him now: it was his 
right to know what she knew. In deadly silence, he 
heard all that she had to tell him of Isabel’s words, 
of her looks; and of Mr. Hardacre’s part in their 
calamity. 

John had the telegram in his hand, he read and 
reread it, repeating the word “ ill,” “ ill,” as though 
the heart of the situation lay in the syllable. 

Jane broke at last into that terrible interview, and 
ended it. Her alert, inquisitive face irritated her mis- 
tress, as a fly buzzing about a dying person irritates 
the bystanders. The love of “ news ” is sworn enemy 
to all that is highest in her sex. 

“ If you please, miss, Dr. Pullen has come again, 
and would like to see you. He is in the dining- 
room.” 

“ I will come to him.” 

She got up. John rose too; he held out the tele- 
gram to her. 

“ What does that mean? 111? ” he said, “ I can’t 
master my own brain, Frances, I can’t think.” 

“ The ‘ ill ’ means nothing trivial, John.” 

1 “ I suppose not.” 

“ We must wait,” she said sturdily, nerved by the 
break in his voice, “ He will telegraph as soon as 
the office is open; it will be here by nine o’clock. Till 
then we must wait, John.” 

He looked at the clock. 

“ There are fourteen hours to — endure,” he said. 


260 


SUNSET. 


“ To be got through somehow, — I shall learn how to 
face it better — presently. It is the shock that makes 
a woman of me. There go, Frances, the man is 
waiting.” 

“ When I go, John, I must stay. So far as we 
can judge Alix has fever. Dr. Pullen is very anxious 
about her. Elizabeth and I must nurse her — we must 
be isolated. When I go back to her, I must stay with 
her. You will be alone.” 

“ I want to be alone. I prefer to be alone.. If 
you could be with me, I should ask you to leave 
me.” 

“ And about Alix? ” 

A spasm passed across his face. 

“ I won’t see her. She will be better quiet.” 

Then for a moment, Frances gave way to her 
restrained emotions. 

“ Poor little girl,” she said, “ dear little girl. I 
do love her so, John. She shall miss — nothing, she 
shall want — no one. She shall be mine — my own. 
You can trust her to me — the sweet little girl.” 

A few minutes later Frances was greeting the 
doctor in a cool, clear voice, raised pleasantly; the 
frankest woman in the world can act like an artist in 
an emergency. 

She kept up appearances royally. 

Elizabeth had had a hard day, Frances told her, 
and she was nothing loath to go to bed; while for the 
second night the young lady kept a watch, banishing 
sleep. 

Alix was light-headed, her restlessness had in- 
creased. Frances had a terrible night of it, sooth- 
ing the poor child’s terrors, rocking her in her arms. 


SUNSET. 


261 


Never a moment’s quiet for either of the twain, body 
nor mind; and all Frances could do seemed to avail 
nothing. 

She was not the only human watcher that night. 
Whenever Alix’s wail ceased for a moment, Frances 
could hear to and fro, to and fro, in the room beyond 
her, a long, heavy tread pacing up and down. The 
footsteps never seemed to cease at all. 

The remembrance of that night may fade as the 
years go by, but it will never die. The great joys 
and the deep woes of our life are graven with in- 
delible knife, on those who live them through. 

The dawn came, but there was no one under that 
low roof to whom the dawn brought relief. The 
light of day was no boon to such evil as had fallen 
on the household at Wayfield. There was no con- 
solation in the telegram which came, only fresh per- 
plexity : 

u Mrs. Beaumont is alarmingly ill . She is alone. 
Will Mr. Beaumont come f I will meet him when 
and where he directs. — Hardacre.” 

“ Will Mr. Beaumont come?” John’s decision 
had to he made immediately, if a morning train was 
to he caught. Frances had come down into the gar- 
den to meet him; they paced to and fro on the dewy 
grass, with the sunshine streaming upon them. 

“ Yes, go,” she was saying, “ go. Do what you 
think — right. Not what is wisest: not what is con- 
ventional: not what your pride suggests. Do what 
you would like to have done if she were — dead; do 
what you will like to have done when you are — dy- 


262 


SUNSET. 


ing; when everything, except just the end, fades. I 
can’t advise you, John, I can’t quite — understand, 
but I think — I think ” 

His eyes were downcast. 

“ Anything is better than waiting here, that I 
can’t stand; here in the,” he made a passionate gesture 
of dislike to the beauty of the smiling hills and verdant 
valley, to the sunshine and the songs of birds, “ coun- 
try, where ” he broke off. “ I will go. I will 

see Hardacre. I can trust myself thus far.” 

“ She is very ill,” Frances put in. The poor man 
spoke roughly. 

“ Yes, yes, I know. Frances, you hear how ill 
she is. She’ll want a woman. Can’t you come? ” 

It was Frances’s turn to think now. Womanlike 
she jumped to the conclusion, not weighing the ques- 
tion, but, with a swift impulse, answering it. 

“ Ho, John, no. I won’t leave Allie. Poor 
Allie, she is no better, no better at all. You can’t 
tell, for you haven’t seen her. Her throat is sore, and 
she is restless, incessantly restless, though she’s tired 
out. I can’t give her up to any one. Alix has no 
one now. Don’t you know, John, 4 love is justified 
of love.’ If Alix were my very own, I might leave 
her; it would be different. But she is not my very 
own, so I will stay and nurse her.” 

So Frances stayed, and he said no more; before 
the sun had drunk the dew off the budding flowers 
he had left Wayfield. 


CHAPTER XIX. 


0 Death, thou art the cooling night, 

0 Life, thou art the sultry day. 

Heine. 

Mr. Hardacre wrote long, full letters, he told 
Prances all he had to tell; there was nothing but 
those letters, Dr. Pullen’s visits, and her own daily 
walks in the fresh air to break up the long sad hours, 
which she spent with poor little Alix in the sick-room. 
She wanted the letters, and yet the knowledge they 
contained was no comfort, it only brought a fresh 
aspect of the tragedy to her, darkening what was 
already black enough. 

“ May 5th. 

“ My dear Miss Blake, (the vicar wrote,) 

“ I will try to tell you what has happened 
since I saw you last as exactly as possible, that you 
may know what I know, so that words between us 
when we meet will not be wanted. It is best to write 
accurately, what it is hard to speak. I have had no 
difficulty in finding them; they went to Plymouth. 
I followed them to the hotel where they had gone. I 
saw him in the lobby when I came. He was not 
alone, he passed me, he was talking to a man with 
whom he walked. I waited on the chance of his re- 
263 


264 


SUNSET. 


turn; in an hour’s time he came back alone, and I 
met him face to face. He knew me at once. His 
face was haggard, lined, strained. I spoke to him, he 
silenced me with a gesture. I saw that he was in 
some great trouble. 

“ ‘ She is ill/ he said; he could hardly control his 
voice. 4 If — if your coat means anything, help me.’ 
He had got hold of my arm. i I fetched a doctor here 
an hour ago; he has this moment left her. She is 
very ill, she is prostrate. It is fever, scarlet-fever, 
and she must go; she can’t stay here; they won’t 
keep her.’ 

“ He had drawn me off into the corridor; his face 
worked, his agitation was terrible. 

“ ‘ Tell me what I can do? ’ I said. i I am here 
to help you.’ 

“ 4 She doesn’t know me, — Oh, God she doesn’t 
know me.’ 

“ ‘ She is very ill,’ I repeated his words, ‘ what are 
we to do for her? There is no time now for — for 
this. We must think and act. What does the doctor 
say? ’ He controlled himself. 

“ ‘ The doctor is sending in a nurse at once,’ he 
said, ‘ she must be moved from the hotel, she must be 
taken to the fever hospital. He has gone there to 
get a private room, to make every arrangement. He 
will send the nurse and ambulance as soon as possible. 
He — he told me straight that he thinks badly of her. 
She — she kept up till the last: her throat and head 
were hurting her, I know, all yesterday. It was at 
breakfast that she fainted — I couldn’t get her round ; 
I rang, and the women came and she roused up. But 
she’s not herself — she doesn’t know me. She’s been 


SUNSET. 


265 


asking for her little girl/ His lips were strained so 
that they showed his teeth; he was trembling like a 
child. ‘ I am off my head ; I can’t think. But, you ; 
— she talked to me of you, can’t you think of some- 
thing that I can do for her ? ’ 

“ ‘ You must go.’ 

“ ( I? Go? — You are mad. Leave her like this? ’ 

“ ‘ You asked, “ Can you think of something that 
I can do for her? ” and I say, yes, I can think. You 
must go.’ 

“ He set his teeth and looked me in the face. 

“ ‘ She is even now asking for the child.’ I went 
on, ‘ she does not know you. You must leave her. 
It is the only thing that you, yourself, can do for her. 
Leave her what women prize when they are sane; 
leave her her fame. Leave her her life, if God will 
give it her. You don’t believe in God; men who do 
as you have done have no faith to help them; — I un- 
derstand. But, I say, leave her her life, and go — go. 
I am here, and I will take your charge upon my 
shoulders. All that man can do, I will do.’ 

“ ‘ Desert her? Leave her?’ he cried, ‘ I would 
lie across her threshold, like a dog till I died — too.’ 

“ ‘ You love this woman,’ I said, ‘ but I tell you 
that God loves her best. You would rob her of home, 
and fame, and of her child. What would you give 
her instead of such good gifts? Can you depend 
upon yourself? Can you swear that as the leveling 
years go slowly by, and passion sobers, that you are 
such a steadfast loyal man as would never fail her? 
Never fail her of love, of your whole love, of your 
whole passion, of your whole devotion, of your whole 
reverence, of your whole life? She’d want them all, 


266 


SUNSET. 


full measure of them all, to keep the stain from cor- 
roding to her heart, and feeding there until the heart 
was dead. Such a responsibility was yours — and you 
are young for it, — but God has taken her from you. 
This fever was upon her yesterday, yesterday when 
you tempted her. We can not tell, but, before 
heaven, I believe that had she been herself, even then, 
at the last, she would have turned from such a fatal 
step. She is pliable, gentle, no doubt she loves you 
well. But she is not a woman fitted for the shame 
that you would bring upon her.’ 

“ He has not a strong face, he is no more strong 
for evil than for good, and he shrank from my words, 
wavering. 

“ ^ You must go/ I urged again. ‘ Before the 
nurse comes, you must be gone. I shall do all that 
can be done. I will act from hour to hour as I think 
right/ 

“ I said but little more, and he agreed to go. Hot 
far from her, but somewhere out of sight, whither I 
myself would go to him from time to time, and 
bring him word of the drama enacted behind the 
walls. 

“ We went up together to the room where she 

lay. 

“ A woman was standing beside her; he sent her 
away. I was glad he did so, for his face spoke plainly 
of his remorse, and sin, and despair. 

“ She did not know him; her eyes were open; 
she twisted her head from side to side incessantly, and 
muttered to herself. Her face was flushed from brow 
to chin, her hair hung over her forehead. She said 
‘ Hush, hush ! ’ gathering her brows together, as 


SUNSET. 207 

though noise hurt her, if the slightest sound broke the 
silence. 

“ He waited, watching every breath she took. 

“ ‘ Isabel, Isabel . 7 

“ His voice sent tears welling up to my eyes, but 
she only whispered, ‘Hush, hush, hush ! 7 and began to 
mutter louder, wringing her hands. It was very pain- 
ful to see her, and presently he went; he had kissed 
the hem of her skirt repeatedly, speechlessly, noise- 
lessly. I think I shall remember his face as it was 
then for evermore. 

“The doctor came himself to superintend her re- 
moval to the Fever Hospital; he is a quiet, capable 
man, he irtade no inquiries, except in connection with 
her illness. An hour ago she was taken to the private 
room, which he had procured for her; everything that 
can be done for her is being done by the doctors and 
the nurses. 

“ I am writing this in the matron’s room, awaiting 
your cousin. She is very ill. 

“ Here I broke off, the doctor called me : she is 
worse. He asked whether there is any one for whom 
I wish to send. I waited for her husband. He came 
not long ago. He is calm, collected, behaving bravely: 
while I write he is standing near the door listening. 
I overheard the doctor speaking to him. Beaumont 
was cold in manner, and the other man spoke bluntly; 
thinking, perhaps, that he did not understand, nor 
realize, her peril. 

“ ‘ Is she very ill ? 7 he had asked. 

“ ‘ Her condition is most critical. She has had 
fever, a malignant, virulent form of scarlet-fever on 
her for days. She is knocked down, the prostration is 


268 


SUNSET. 


excessive. I think, if you have any relative for whom 
you may wish to send, you should do so/ 

“ ‘ Is there no hope? ? 

“ She has done him a deadly wrong for which, in 
mortal eyes, neither life nor death can atone. 

“ ‘ While there is life there is hope/ 

“ The doctor took refuge in a forlorn formula. 

“ ‘ Do not deceive me. Is she dying? ’ 

“ ‘ She is in extreme danger/ 

“ i Is she dying? ’ 

“ ‘ I fear — the worst, I fear she is dying/ 

“ The doctor looked on the ground, that odd set 
look upon his face, which onlookers assume at the 
sight of emotion which they are debarred from sharing. 
Your cousin had turned right away. 

“ ‘ How long will she live? ’ 

“ 6 She may live twenty-four hours/ 

“ ‘ My God/ 

“ When he moved he went over to the writing- 
table, and wrote a couple of telegrams. It seemed to 
me an hour before I heard the scratching of the pen. 

“ The doctor was fidgeting at the door. 

“ ‘ Are you coming up ? ’ he asked, ‘ there can be 
no objection to your coming now/ 

“ ‘ Would it be — wise? ’ 

“ ‘ If you fear infection/ he spoke sharply, frown- 
ing, ‘ it would be unwise/ 

“ ‘ I fear nothing/ 

“ ‘ Your presence will not affect the patient. She 
is lethargic: it is difficult to rouse her/ 

“ There was for the second time a sound which 
betrayed that Beaumont was not steel; the doctor 
softened. 


SUNSET. 


269 


“ ‘ She may regain consciousness. If she does, it 
would be better that she should recognize you. We 
are all strangers to her.’ 

“ He walked away with the doctor, and I — I went 
to send off the telegrams, and to — God forgive me if 
I have done wrong — speak to the soul-stricken watcher 
who is pacing the night away, in the rain and dark- 
ness without. We pray for all sorts and conditions 
of men. Pray for him, he needs it. I think he has 
never known a trouble till to-night; he thought him- 
self as far from suffering, as she, in her vigor and 
beauty, from death. 

“ In the midst of this great sorrow and desperate 
illness I feel bewildered, and can hardly put things 
down plainly for you, that you may understand. I 
must take this to the post, so that you shall not have 
suspense to add to your trouble. 

“ Yours ever faithfully, 

“ William H. Hardacre.” 

May 6th. 

“ My dear Miss Blake, 

“ Again it is evening, and I have had no 
leisure in which to write to you till now; and the 
post goes before I shall be able to finish all I want 
to tell you. I have been with her repeatedly, I was 
summoned for the first time this morning, Beaumont 
fetched me himself. They can hardly get him to 
leave her now. She does not know him, she knows 
no one. She is altered beyond recognition. She 
took no notice of me; we were alone, the doctor and 
nurse had left us for the time, and Beaumont stood 
looking down at her. She was fingering the coverlet 
18 


270 


SUNSET. 


with her hands. I remember watching them as her 
rings flashed over her embroidery; they were busy 
quick fingers. He watched them; he was wan and 
stern. Her hands were beautiful, undisfigured. Sud- 
denly he broke through my prayer, and caught them 
both in his; kneeling down and putting them upon 1 
his bowed head. 

“ The thought of death had wiped all bitterness 
from him. 

“ . . . soon or late, 
Wronged and wrongdoer, each with meekened face, 

And cold hands folded over a still heart, 

Pass the dark threshold of one common grave, 

Whither all footsteps tend, whence none depart.” 

“ ‘ Isabel/ his voice might have roused the dead, 
it was so full of suffering life, ‘ I am the one to ask 
forgiveness. This man here speaks of being forgiven, 
he speaks to me, — to me, do you hear him? — I did 
not know it, and you would not tell me. It was I 
who failed. Do you hear? Try and hear. Try 
and understand. If I had understood, if I had only 
understood. You should not have forgotten my love, 

I would have sheltered you from all temptation. I 
am the one to be forgiven, you have forgotten my 
love. Isabel, Isabel, listen, think of Alix. You 
loved your little girl, — your pretty baby. For her 
sake, Isabel, forgive me. ? 

“ It is beyond my power to tell you how he 
pleaded with her. From how generous a nature his 
piteous words were formed. But she lay plucking at 
the clothes as soon as he loosed her poor hands, and 
stared away past us at vacancy. She panted all the 
while for breath. He could not break through the' 


SUNSET. 


271 


clouds of fever, and reach her brain. She did not 
answer him, though in some strange way his voice 
disturbed her, and she began to whisper, in a hoarse 
faint voice of water, water; — thinking no doubt of 
the wild river Sylve in our valley. 

“ ‘ I want water. The cool, deep water. I hear 
it splashing on the big green stones. I want water. 
No, no/ he thought she asked to drink, ‘ not that. 
Deep water, Eddie, by the woods. No, I won’t see 
it, I can’t see it, never again. Did you hear what 
he said? Don’t, don’t, I like the water, it’s so lonely. 

I want the water, the water on my head. It is hot, 
it hurts me ; bring me the water for the pain, it washes 
away.’ 

“ We were not left alone with her for long. Soon 
the doctors and nurses came back to the room, they 
were still fighting all they knew for her waning life, 
fighting a forlorn hope doggedly, as a losing side 
should fight; giving up no chance at all, contending 
bravely. 

“ He stayed on at her side, and I came here to 
write to you. The minutes are long, and yet the 
hours rush by. Her mother and the sisters, to whom 
he telegraphed yesterday, have not come. They are 
not coming. 

“ 6 They are people,’ he said, ‘ who catch at any 
straw rather than face trouble. They were brought 
up to it. Each man for himself. I — I should have ( 
taken better care of her, there was no one else to do it.’ 

“ It unnerved him to find that they could refuse to 
understand his summons. 

“ ‘ Cannot come , let us Icnoiv how she goes on . — 


272 


SUNSET. 


“ Her motlier telegraphed thus, that was all. 

“ I long to he at Sylvester, hut while I am of use 
here I must stay. He never speaks of Alix. Your 
hands and heart are overfull, I know. 

“ Yours ever faithfully, 

“ W. H. Hardacre.” 

“ May 7th. 

“ We were up all night with her. I fancied once 
or twice she seemed to listen. Once or twice I thought 
she said something which I could not hear, her voice 
was choked. At daylight her sufferings came to an 
end. She had known no one at all from the begin- 
ning. We can hardly grasp what the strain for your 
cousin has been; he did not break down, but an hour 
ago the doctor found him unconscious on the floor 
of her room. Till now he has neither eaten nor 
drunk, nor sat down. But he is being looked after 
at last, and is asleep upright in a chair here in the 
room with me. I do, I have done what I can, and 
that is nothing, nothing. I am depressed, hopeless, 
my life is full of useless struggling, the weakening 
struggles of death. Struggles that do not free; im- 
potent struggles. A cold, fainting heart such as mine 
never yet won a great cause, and I fail. Pray that 
my heart may be good, and my courage strong. You 
will despise me for my cowardice, but I have been 
a spectator of such scenes as God must pity; yet 
there was no outcry, no clamoring, the very quietness 
of the despair has eaten into my mind, and left a mark 
there for always. 

“ Yours faithfully, 

“W. II. H.” 


SUNSET. 


273 


“ My dear Frances, 

“ Hardacre has written to yon constantly, 
he says. I am sorry to hear you have so much anxiety 
over Alix. I hope you will get nurses to relieve you, 
and will send for any second doctor for whom you 
have a fancy. I shall not come to Wayfield till next 
week. Her poor mother will be taken to London. 
Your letter was a comfort to me; you who know all, 
you only can understand what it means. I am not 
quite myself yet. I can not write. 

“ Yours affectionately, 

“ John Beaumont.” 

With this quartette of letters in her pocket, Fran- 
ces kept a cheerful sick-room face going day after 
day, as she fought her untutored fight with the fever 
in her household; and fought it well, ay, scientifically 
too. Alix was very ill. Death was very near the 
house, it seemed to tap at the Wayfield window-panes 
in the night when Frances watched. There are epochs 
in our life when such tapping does not scare us; when 
we almost smile to hear it; when such a guest would 
be welcome; when we are ready to greet it as best 
friend and comforter. Epochs when sin and shame, 
suffering and sorrow lie across our path; and hope 
(the last best gift) deserts us. 

Epochs these of inaction, but Frances had work to 
do. She had no time to say “ poor Frances; ” to do 
her justice she was ready to apply that adjective to 
all the world, but never to herself. She had half-a- 
dozen stirring adjectives in personal use, none with 
pity in them. Alix wanted her, no one was ever 
wanted more than by this motherless, sick bairn. Ac- 


274 


SUNSET. 


tion was to be Frances’s salvation. She meant to be 
one of the sisterhood whom she had classed together, 
and at whom she had laughed. It did not quench 
her determination, because the sisterhood had once 
seemed deplorable. 

She was a woman “ who had had a disappoint- 
ment, and who had taken to good works.” 

These familiar words described her precisely. She 
meant to do the sort of things which their detractors 
call good works — she meant to do these things when 
Alix was better. She meant to help “ lame dogs over 
stiles” 

Her intention was strong. People would laugh 
at the disappointment, and at the works. Ridicule 
is not stimulating. Frances, though she had lived in 
that streak of society which makes public opinion its 
religion, was not specially alive to its influence. She 
had been independent, and had gone her own way 
from her school-girl days. 

That something more than a disappointment had 
fallen upon her, should not be known. The disap- 
pointment would form food for many a tongue; the 
tongues she knew best wanted plenty of stoking. It 
was petty, it was paltry to remember “ tongues ” when 
she was face to face with tragedy, the incomprehen- 
sible bewildering tragedy of the suffering of a helpless 
child. 

Dr. Pullen went back to his wife one night, with a 
more cheerful face than he had lately brought from 
his evening visits to Way field. 

“ The child is better,” he said, “ decidedly better. 
I believe she will pull through now. Miss Blake is 
turning out an admirable nurse. Many women of 


SUNSET. 


275 


her sort are good organizers; she is more than an 
organizer; she’s an actor, she has energy for both parts, 
she keeps the old nurse about her, but she does all 
the work.” 

“ Mr. Hardacre came back from the funeral last 
night,” said Mrs. Pullen, suggestively. She was not 
a gossip, she assured herself; but to live in a vil- 
lage, and not to hear what people were saying was 
impossible. “ The poor thing was buried in Lon- 
don.” 

“ Really,” the doctor said, growing dense and 
dull as he was wont to be when his wife waxed cu- 
rious. 

“ Have you seen the widower’s little boy? ” 

“ Yes, wading up the gutter outside the post-office, 
as rosy as an apple; the vicar and the nurse looking 
on hopelessly.” 

“ He was as white as paper when he came. What 
wonderful care Miss Blake has taken of him.” 

“ Wonderful,” dryly, “ when I think of that duck- 
ing the young shaver got on the day he came down, I 
marvel at it.” 

“ I don’t know what you mean. You are laugh- 
ing at me.” 

“ Ho, I am not laughing, there hasn’t been much 
to laugh at down here just lately.” 

“ People say ” 

“My dear, I only care what they do; not a fig 
what they say.” 

“ You are out of humor. I believe some fresh 
case of scarlet-fever has broken out.” 

“ There has been no case except this single one at 
Way field, I don’t fancy it will spread. Every pre- 


276 


SUNSET. 


caution has been taken, and the longer I live the more 
sure I am that the family of caution and precaution 
are the most useful known factors by which to govern 
a successful existence.” 

“ Have you heard any particulars? ” 

“ Hone, I have seen particulars. I have seen my 
thermometer, and I have seen tears of relief in Miss 
Blake’s eyes; particulars of that sort are worth see- 
ing.” 

“ You are pedantic,” she said. 

She had shed genuine tears over the Wayfield 
tragedy, but that emotion did not prevent her wish- 
ing to sift, and strain, and poke, and preach among 
its ashes. 


CHAPTEK XX. 


“ Had the world nothing she might live to care for? 

No second self to say her evening prayer for ? ” 

Dr. Pullen was right, there were to he no more 
cases of scarlet-fever in Sylvester, and his little pa- 
tient, after a longer, tougher fight than he had alto- 
gether anticipated, did finally pull through her fever, 
and regain a considerable portion of her strength. 

Her convalescence was a weary business, but 
Prances did not tire of it; she lavished such little 
cares and small attentions upon Alix as a mother- 
less child is not apt to find strewn upon her way. 
Ever since that bright May-day, far back in the spring, 
Alix had been in Frances's charge, — and now it was 
September. 

Frances was still in rough water. Australian af- 
fairs were not satisfactory. She knew all particulars 
about her bank shares now. They were mere waste 
paper. In one case being even worse than useless, 
for she had calls to pay upon them ; heavy calls which 
she tried to forget in the day-time, but of which she 
dreamed at nights. 

She had lost half her income, and it was not un- 
likely that she would lose more than that. 

Way field must be let; it was in the agents’ hands. 
The servants had notice to quit. 

277 


278 


SUNSET. 


“ The devil was ill, the devil a monk would be, 

The devil was well, the devil a monk was he ! ” 

Months ago in Frances’s mental illness she had 
declared that she meant to make the best of her life. 
She had put her case ludicrously. 

She would be one of those women who, having 
had a “ disappointment” take to “ good works.” Un- 
attractively she had stated the case, and yet it worked 
out attractively enough. She put a good face on her 
personal troubles, she never bemoaned herself. Los- 
ing her money and leaving her home were fairly stiff 
trials to her just now; but no one would have guessed 
that the change of circumstances was more than an 
interesting alteration of environment, to which it was 
easy to adapt herself. She did not mean to depress 
any one. 

The devil was fairly well, and he still held to his 
resolutions. 

Yet, with a habit engendered by the recent tide of 
trouble, she sat down to read a thick letter from George 
Brand in Melbourne, wondering what fresh catas- 
trophe it would disclose to her. Letters came every 
week, and they were never reassuring; her heart was 
no longer buoyant, it beat no whit the faster as she 
opened the envelope. 

“ Deae Feances, (he wrote,) 

“ I have been here four months, and I see 
no immediate prospect of my return. In fact, I be- 
lieve it imperative that I should wait and see our 
congested, bungled, muddled affairs through this 
crisis. I can’t give you hopeful news. Things are 
said to be at their worst, but I doubt it: working up 


SUNSET. 


279 


to the worst is not often a rapid process. How- 
ever, time will show. With your authority I sold 
out those Marton shares, thereby securing you a 
thousand pounds, instead of a deficit of fifteen hun- 
dred. 

u You give me a full and charming report of Fra. 
I feel that, kind as it is of you to look after him, yet 
with all these worries on your shoulders, you should 
be relieved, if possible, of any extra responsibility. 
Poor John writes word that Alix is permanently with 
you; as yet surely there is no necessity for your set- 
ting up a kindergarten! That sounds philanthropic; 
it is not so; it is purely selfish. I miss the boy more 
than I can say. My stay here may be indefinitely 
prolonged. The long and short of the whole thing is, 
I can’t get on without him, and I want him here. 
The voyage would do him good: the climate is first- 
rate. I have written by this mail to John, asking 
him to make all arrangements for his journey; and, 
all being well, to ship him off in the Cambria on the 
20th of September. Hannah will take the order 
calmly, I know; I don’t believe she’d leave the boy, 
if he went to the mountains of the moon. 

“ Does this take your breath away? I have only 
just made up my mind that come he must; and, now 
that is done, there need be no delay. I am afraid 
you will have a lot of bother with outfit. John is 
sending you a cheque to cover all expenses. Many 
thanks for having him; perhaps, I don’t quite com- 
prehend how good it was of you! You see, Pm by 
way of thinking it a privilege to get hold of the 
youngster! You must, I fear have had many an 
anxiety on his account. The idea of scarlet-fever, 


280 


SUNSET. 


though all risk is over, keeps me rather fidgety; I am 
so many long leagues away from the only little scrap 
of humanity I own. 

“ If I had foreseen how long a business this would 
have been, of course I should have taken him out 
with me. Will you wire me word when he starts? 
Also let me know what you think of John when 
you see him. 

“ Yours gratefully and sincerely, 

“ Geoege Beand.” 

All the while Frances read this letter she could 
hear the children’s voices in the garden, and the sound 
was pleasant in her ears. 

She sat still fingering her letter and thinking over 
her tidings. She was seated on the window-seat in 
her drawing-room, and she looked out at the western 
hills, where she had watched so many a sunset through 
spring and summer, autumn and winter; she liked to 
watch the western sky brighten at the sunset. 

For a while her mind turned to Isabel; she, too, 
had watched the western hills, she had seen how the 
glorious sun sank there in the west, and how the dark- 
ness spread down across the land. 

Frances’s mood was playing traitor with her cour- 
age, she did not like her letter. George’s arrange- 
ment was wise enough, he had every right to make 
it; if personally she was pained, she ought to have 
got used to being hurt by this time; she had quite got 
rid of the habit of dwelling over-much upon her scars. 
But that little joke about the kindergarten did cut a 
little, and, as she thought about it, the thought twisted 
the joke sharply in the wound. If he cared at all, he' 


SUNSET, 


281 


could not have made it. But then he never had cared 
at all. She knew what love was. Love that was 
eager and yet patient. Love that could not wound; 
that did not know of self; that lived in her life; 
sulfered when she was sad; was gay if she smiled. 
And she had persuaded herself that George had loved 
her. Ah, the kindergarten joke stung, he should 
not have made it; for the first time in all these many 
months the king had erred. 

How life changed. How she had longed to have 
this boy of George’s in her charge, and her desire had 
been brought about ; she had had him here, under her 
own roof, here in her care. 

Then trouble had come, in her days and nights of 
watching, in the anguish which had overshadowed 
her house, the boy had been no happiness to her; 
he had been an extra care, an additional anxiety. 
Some one over whose welfare she had worried, 
when leisure from active sorrow gave her time to 
worry. 

How life changed. Did a woman’s heart’s desire 
often turn out a failure, when the desire was granted? 
She had, herself, intended to be happy, she had in- 
tended to get such things as she wanted, and to be 
happy, truly happy. 

Happiness and truth. Words for the gods, and 
yet bandied lightly by mortal tongues. True happi- 
ness she had wanted. What is happiness? What is 
truth ? 

Truth? There are those who search for truth, 
search somewhere far off in the clouds, they search a 
lifetime through; truth is no will o’ the wisp dancing 
out in the moon-light on the moors. 


282 


SUNSET. 


Truth is close home, about feet and hands, and 
eyes, here in the daily life. 

“ Stitch a seam true, sweep a floor true, speak a 
word true.” There is truth in all things; and where 
all is true, there will happiness be true, should we 
force it to come our way and dwell with us. 

Happiness is not to-morrow, nor was it yesterday; 
it is to-day, if it be at all. It goes about our path, 
and we may gather it from the smiles of those we love, 
from love itself; — from the power to love — with its 
fruits of joy and peace. 

Presently Frances rose, taking her letter in her 
hand, she went through the conservatory out upon 
the lawn. There was an autumn air of desolation 
about the flower-beds, the garden was no longer spick 
and span; her orderly eyes must blind themselves to 
defects, with nothing but an empty pocket at their 
back, to carry out their desires. 

The children did not mind blemishes, they were 
playing at work on the gravel path, Fra was putting 
stones into his wheel-barrow, and Alix was gathering 
the fallen leaves into crackling heaps. Frances went 
over the grass to the little girl, lifted her wide- 
brimmed hat and looked at her delicate face. As 
the twig is bent the tree grows. Alix began to brush 
adhesive leaves off her black frock, and to smooth her 
flaxen hair which was beginning to grow again now, 
and to curl and wave on the nape of her neck. She 
thought if grown-up people looked hard at her, that 
something to do with fig-leaves was wrong. Frances 
took her little fragile hand in hers, she did not even see 
the caked mud about it. 

“ Fra,” she said, “ Fve news for you.” 


SUNSET. 


283 


He came rushing, a frisky, rosy, boisterous boy, to 
hear it. Hews meant something good to hear, of 
course. 

“ A letter from your father, Fra.” 

“ Is Dad coming back again? I want to show 
him my wheel-barrow. I never had no real wheel- 
barrow in London.” 

“ Ho, he’s not coming back, not for a long while 
yet, but he can’t do without you, Fra. You are going 
in a ship, across the sea, to live with father.” 

The small boy fled back to his barrow, and then 
began to run, wheeling it before him, toward the 
house. 

“ Hannah will put on my velly warm coater,” he 
called back, his face was radiant, “ must make haste, 
or the puff train will be gone.” 

The loyalty of the little son was as it should be, 
but both Alix, and Alix’s big comrade, were some- 
what hurt in their feelings at His action. 

Alix cried over the parting when it really came, 
— and attested to the depth of her feelings by 
getting ill with fretting, when she lost her play- 
fellow. 

John met the travelers in London, and saw them 
off on the Cambria ; going down himself the follow- 
ing day to Sylvester to see Frances. He wanted to 
discuss his daughter’s future with Miss Blake; who, 
possession being nine points of the law, had hitherto 
refused to part with Alix. 

Frances was very gentle with John, she could not 
bear his new manner, it had lost its haste and its de- 
cision, and was a little constrained, a little difficult. 
Speaking of 


284 


SUNSET. 


The reed that grows never more again 
As a reed, with the reeds, in the river.” 

She had suggestions to make, and he listened, his 
eyes upon the ground, as she made them. 

“ My dear Trances, it is very kind of you to have 
thought of it,” he said, when she paused: “ but the 
child is mine, and therefore it is my duty to take the 
responsibility and trouble of her education.” 

“ If it is only your duty, John,” Frances did not 
speak meekly, in her role of disappointed woman fall- 
ing back on good works; she spoke vehemently in a 
not entirely steady voice, “it is my pleasure, my 
delight, my great joy.” Had she not seen, with an 
almost maternal acuteness of vision, that John’s feel- 
ings toward his little daughter were mixed, that he 
watched her critically, that he was on the look-out 
for inherited failings in her, that he had no passionate 
tender pity for his more than motherless child ? “ Con- 
stance has decided that they will live altogether in 
London. She has lost considerably as I have in these 
horrible smashes, and she can not afford the luxury 
of town and country, — the piebald life. Way field is 
our joint property, and we are going to sell. I’ve had 
a capital offer. Meanwhile, I shall furnish a cottage, 
it’s a real, genuine cottage, not a gabled villa, John, 
and make iny permanent home in it.” 

“ Where is this cottage? ” 

“ A stone’s throw beyond the village; it is a dry y 
well-built, little place, with a garden in front and a 
wash-house behind; room within for Alix and me, 
and for a maid to look after us. Elizabeth we must 
dispense with, I believe I have found her an easy 
place with an old lady in Exeter. Dr. Pullen has 


SUNSET. 


285 


done wonders for her deafness, but he says she must 
have only light work; the nursing knocked her up.” 

Frances had developed the gracious knack of put- 
ting things comfortably for people. The dry cottage 
and the garden, — no gabled villa as she magnificently 
allowed, — sounded picturesque and homelike; she ig- 
nored the discomforts; if she, physically, shrank from 
all the alterations, the privations which such changes 
meant to her comfort-loving nature, she did not be- 
tray herself by her words or her manner. There was 
only one person on earth who looked beneath the sur- 
face, and that person was not her cousin John. His 
face brightened over the hearing of her plans. 

“ Leave Alix to me,” she went on, cheerily. “ She 
is not strong enough to go back to London, the air 
would poison her, as it does so many children. Here 
she lives out of doors, and though she is as fragile as 
a wood anemone, I think she’s getting stronger. You 
fuss, I see, about her education : it shan’t be neglected. 
I know my a b c.” 

“ Of course she must have a governess, Frances. 
The gene of teaching ” 

“ Pshaw ! ” she interrupted. “ The gene of idle- 
ness is the only unbearable, acute form of gene. I 
don’t know where I could tuck a governess away in 
the little cottage. You must take my word for it, 
Alix shall cultivate her faculties. I will undertake to 
see to that.” 

“ You undertake more than I can repay you, 
Frances. More than money can ever repay.” 

“ Money,” saying the word rather roughly, 
“ money does not buy much that is worth having, 
John; it doesn’t buy flesh and blood; it doesn’t buy 
19 


286 


SUNSET. 


what Alix gives me; it can’t buy anything like that, 
John. Alix comes to me for everything, she follows 
me about, she isn’t happy without me, she wants me 
perpetually, she is happy with me.” 

John got up, he did not quite follow Frances’s 
words, he saw that she was working up her emotions, 
her face was twitching, and her frank bright eyes 
were growing dark and passionate. 

“ Oh, J ohn,” she said, rising too, and looking him 
straight in the face; she felt what she was saying too 
much to he self-conscious; “ I don’t want to be pig- 
headed. I don’t mean to be self-willed. I don’t want 
to put my fingers into my neighbors’ pies, but let me 
keep Alix. If you think it right for Alix to be in the 
country where she is happy, where she is loved, where 
she is a delight to a woman who can never for- 
give herself for the past, John, who can never atone 
for the past, let Alix stay. She is like my own, and 
I’m rather lonely, J ohn, I want something of my very 
own.” 

It was a relief to John’s mind that his daughter 
should be in his cousin’s custody. All the more so 
because a maternal aunt of Alix had lately offered, 
for a considerable consideration, to bring her up 
in the school-room with three little girls of her 
own. 

J ohn had a horror of such rearing, he had a horror 
of the mother and the sisters who had shirked the 
May tragedy. He would write and say that his plans 
for Alix were made; it was convenient as well as 
prudent to fall in with Frances’s wishes, and to leave 
the little girl in the home that she, herself, would have 
chosen. 


SUNSET. 


287 


So Frances had her way, and the child stayed with 
her. John did not want his daughter; he saw her 
fairly often, he wrote to her regularly, he did his duty 
so far as he could. Taciturn, reticent, he went out 
again among the little circle which he called his world, 
and lived such life as was left to him, never escaping 
the shadow which had fallen along his road, though 
he held his head up as though he did not know Twas 
there. His faith in himself was shaken ; hut if he flo 
longer wholly liked himself, his friends liked him the 
better for his lack of self-esteem. 

J ohn had said that money could not repay Frances; 
nevertheless, the annual hundred pounds which he 
bestowed upon her, was a mighty help in the working 
of the tiny establishment in Butts Cottage. 

It kept the donkey on which Alix rode far and 
wide among the hills ; it paid for the cream which she 
drank; it stoked the glowing winter fires, topped with 
fragrant peat from the moors, over which Miss Blake 
and Miss Beaumont sat and warmed themselves, when 
dusk came early and the days were cold. 

The financial news from the Antipodes was not 
cheering as time went on; and there were bills, many 
bills for those London gorgeous fig-leaves, that Frances 
had to pay, so that just at first, for a while, it was hard 
for her to make ends of income meet, without tugging 
economies. 

And for the first winter which they spent together 
Frances took the child to the sunny south, dreading 
the moor mists for her delicate throat. Some old 
Blake pearls found their way into the market ; so Miss 
Blake luxuriously went abroad, to the astonishment 
of those friends of hers who had chosen to make, as 


288 


SUNSET. 


is their pleasure and entertainment, the very worst 
of her sad case. 

She had, as she had anticipated, formed plenteous 
food for ravening tongues. 

“ Poor Frances Blake had gone off her head, more 
or less, about Mr. Brand. He had had to fly to the 
Antipodes to avoid her.” 

“ The bank collapse in Australia had ruined 
her.” No one was called to draw upon their in- 
finitesimally minute store of pity, because Frances’s 
misfortune was her fault. “ She had spent the 
enormous interest, which she had received for many 
years, and now she feigned surprise at losing her 
capital.” 

People who do not give help, never give pity. The 
twain are of one flesh. 

“ Frances Blake had taken a cottage, a waggoner’s 
cottage, and poor Isabel Beaumont’s little girl was 
living with her. Hush, hush! no, there was no need 
to hush; every one knew it, now. He — not the hus- 
band — had been ill, or drunk, or something irrespon- 
sible, and had told some one. Some one who had told 
his wife, in confidence; — in confidence, of course. It 
was all in confidence.” 

In Sylvester the May story took a gentler turn. 
Village tongues are no kinder than their kinsfolk in 
the cities, but Alix was not stared at curiously, nor 
discussed harshly, nor watched inquisitively; she was 
looked at softly, with pity. 

“ It was the fever, only the fever; the sweet lady 
had lost her reason, that was the reason why Miss 
Blake had made a mystery of her flight.” 

Never had such an impressive sermon been 


SUNSET. 


289 


“ made ” by their vicar, as the one he had preached 
the day after the funeral. 

“ The greatest of these is Charity ” were the 
words he chose to expound. And those who heard 
him understood what he meant; and there was not 
one of them who did not want to be great. 

Sylvester was en fete upon the Christmas Eve of 
which I write. Luxuries over and above the neces- 
sities of existence, found their way into the cottages; 
there w T as a making merry in the model village, that 
was as infectious among the men and the women 
as among the children. Alix and Miss Blake had 
been out and about all day long in the snow paying 
visits, carrying parcels, talking, laughing, bustling; 
making much in a genial, contagious way, of the 
festival. 

Frances made her vigorous preparations for the gala 
day, as she did most things; energy was one of her 
characteristics which time had not modified. Alix 
followed in her lead, the slender fair child had grown 
tall and girlish; she had nothing that was strong, 
neither health, nor character, nor frame, about her. 
She was a gentle, nervous, pliable child who could 
follow a lead, though she would never make one. 

In a juvenile excess of zeal, she had gone out into 
the tiny kitchen at Butts Cottage, to put holly and 
evergreens into a space, which would hardly hold pots 
and pans and the necessary cook. A cottage has a 
melodious engaging sound, but there are drawbacks 
to be met with under a thatched roof. 

In the sitting-room there was very little room, 
Frances thought; the vicar had come in for tea, and 
he filled the whole hearth. She was in the arm- 


290 


SUNSET. 


chair, sitting there with her hat pushed off her face; 
and she was physically tired. She had been on the 
go the whole day; she looked into the heart of the 
tire — and she yawned. 

Four years had passed — since. Since means so 
much, when there is such a pause as she made after 
the adverb; it meant much to her still. Since she 
had learned first the sorrow, and then the use of life. 

The sorrow had been vast, and the use — how small 
the use could be. 

And yet it was there, she had facts to show her of 
it. Alix’s happy face, her buoyant youth, her sweet 
ways and words. Other things too, somewhat small 
to write of, but not ill to think of. 

Frances had altered; Mr. Hardacre was looking at 
her, and he saw it. She was growing gaunt, her 
features had sharpened, she sat very upright as of 
yore, but her shoulders were angular, there was not 
a spare scrap of flesh about her. Her bare hands 
were no longer soft and white, working hands do not 
keep their grand-dame beauty; they lose it as surely 
as they lose the fineness of the skin, and the polish of 
the nails. 

She was a handsome woman still, she held up her 
shapely head, there was nothing slovenly about her 2 
not a hair out of place though she had not had a 
moment to spare, since her early breakfast; though 
the north wind had blown sharply about her as she 
trudged to and fro in the snow. Yet she had lost her 
youth, it was gone, lost from her face, though the 
mouth had sweetened in expression, and a kindly 
smile lurked about her lips. 

The “ disappointment and “ the good works ” 


SUNSET. 


291 


had, alike, told upon her. They had left their mark, 
— a mark that, perhaps, the losing of her money had 
made indelible; for that loss had changed her daily 
life, and so deepened the effect of the former im- 
pressions. 

“ You are tired,” said the vicar. 

“ Not tired, lazy! ” she yawned again. 

They were alone in the dusky room. Mr. Hard- 
acre knew that Frances was not even aware that it 
was so, he did not love her the less because she was 
faithful, but he suffered more. He did not mean to 
tell her so, but he was off his guard. 

Last time he had told her so, she had been dis- 
tressed; and had even suggested that' she should leave 
Sylvester. For some time he had been careful to hold 
his tongue ; hut he was human, and the human tongue 
gives utterance to that of which the heart is full. 
He knew what he wanted, and he meant to persevere 
until it was his; so long as it did not belong to 
any other man, he saw no reason why it should not 
he his. 

“ Frances,” he said; on her face the firelight fell, 
hut his was’ in the shadow; “ will you never give me 
a right to take care of you? I am lonely, and you 
are lonely, and I have loved you so long.” 

Frances looked up at him; his face was a shadow — 
a shadow in the dark like her old love. 

“ You are faithful to a chimera,” he said. 

“ I am not faithful, there is no question of faith. 
There is no chimera, — not even a chimera now. It 
is three years since I heard from him. It is not faith, 
nor sentiment, it is just — nothing. I don’t care, I 
won’t care, I am changed. I am afraid of that sort 


292 


SUNSET. 


of love, it is unstable. I don’t want to risk anything 
— again.” 

“ Don’t be afraid.” 

She got up and went to the window; before her 
the western hills were all aglow. 

“ My love is not unstable,” he said, “ I don’t think 
you know how much I have always loved you. I am 
not afraid. You say you have changed. I can not 
change. I am only human, I know; and I may fail; 
but I think I can make you happier than you are. I 
know you so well, Frances.” 

“ I am thinking; — it is too late now; I shan’t — 
make you happy.” 

“ I will risk that. It isn’t so very late, Frances. 
Look,” he pointed at the sunset, “ look how bright 
the day is at the end; look at the light on the west- 
ern hills. I have watched it a thousand times; and 
longed that it might come to you, — and to me, to 
me.” 

There was a something, which she had thought 
dead, that stirred in her heart, and listened to his 
voice, — 

“ If she had — well, she longed and knew not wherefore, 

Had the world nothing she might live to care for? 

No second self to say her evening prayer for?” 

“ I wonder why you care for me. I have won- 
dered so much lately,” she said, slowly. “ You do 
know me so well.” 

“ That is the reason why I love you. I love every- 
thing about you.” 

“ No one else would do that,” she said, and she 
laughed; and the laugh made his heart leap. 


SUNSET. 


293 


“ I have waited patiently so long.” 

“ I know you have,” she murmured. “ I know; 
of course, I know it. If you had not cared, you could 
not have been what you are. You deserve so much 
more — you deserve it all. The sunrise and the full 
sunshine, not the sunset only, and the light on the 
western hills.” 

“ The evening light is the most beautiful of all, 
it does not dazzle like the full glow, Frances. It 
comes after the burden and the heat of day, before 
the rest.” 

“ If I can give it you,” she answered. 

“ Only you can give it me.” 

“ If you are not afraid? ” 

“ Another if. I am only afraid of ‘ ifs.’ ” 

Alix came into the room, stumbling over the 
threshold. 

“ Oh, Francie,” she said, “ you haven’t got a 
light.” 

“ There is the sunset,” said Frances. She put her 
hand on Mr. Hardacre’s coat-sleeve. “ Mr. Hardacre 
says that is light enough for us. For you, and for 
him, and for me.” 


THE END. 




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214. A Galahad of the Creeks. By S. Levett Yeats. 

215. The Beautiful White Devil. By Guy Boothby. 

216. The Sun of Saratoga. By Joseph A. Altsheler. 

217. Fierceheart , the Soldier. By J. C. Snaith. 

218. Marietta's Marriage. By W. E. Norris. 

219. Dear Faustina. By Rhoda Broughton. 

220. Niilma. By Mrs. Campbell- Praed. 

221. The Folly of Pen Harrington. By Julian Sturgis. 

222. A Colonial Free-Lance. By C. C. Hotchkiss. 

223. His Majesty's Greatest Subject. By S. S. Thobburn. 

224. Mifanwy : A Welsh Singer. By Allen Raine. 

225. A Soldier of Manhattan. By Joseph A. Altsheler. 

223. Fortune's Footballs. By G. B. Burgin. 

227. The Clash of Arms. By J. Bloundelle-Burton. 

228. God's Foundling. By A. J. Dawson. 

229. Miss Providence. By Dorothea Gerard. 

230. The Freedom of Henry Merely th. By M. Hamilton. 

231. Sweethearts and Friends. By Maxwell Gray. 

232. Sunset. By Beatrice Whitby. 

233. A Fiery Ordeal. By Tasma. 

234. A Prince of Mischance. By T. Gallon. 

235. A Passionate Pilgrim. By Percy White. 

236. This Little World. By David Christie Murray. 

237. A Trooper of the Empress. By Clinton Ross. 

238. The Incidental Bishop. By Grant Allen. 

Each, 12mo, paper oover, 50 cents) cloth, $1.00. 


For sale by all booksellers ; or sent by mail on receipt of price by the publishers , 
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK. 


D. APPLETON AND COMPANY’S PUBLICATIONS. 


SOME CHOICE FICTION. 

EACH, l6MO, CLOTH, SPECIAL BINDING, $1.25. 


T 


HE MYSTERY OF CHOICE. By R. W. Cham- 

Bers, author of “ The Moon-Maker,” “ The Red Republic,” etc. 


“Probably Mr. Robert W. Chambers is to-day the most promising American writer 
of fiction of his age. . . . ‘ The Mystery of Choice ’ reveals his most delightful quali- 
ties at their best. . . . Imagination he has first of all, and it is of a fine quality ; con- 
stant action he achieves without apparent effort; naturalness, vividness, the power of 
description, and especially local color, come to him like delight in one of those glorious 
mornings when distance seems annihilated.” — Boston Herald. 


M 


ARCH HARRS. By Harold Frederic, author 

of “ The Damnation of Theron Ware,” “ In the Valley,” etc. 


“ One of the most cheerful novels we have chanced upon for many a day. It has 
much of the rapidity and vigor of a smartly written farce, with a pervading freshness a 
smartly written farce rarely possesses. ... A book decidedly worth reading.” — Lou- 
don Saturday Review. 

“ A striking and original story, . . . effective, pleasing, and very capable.” — Lon- 
don Literary World. 

“ Mr. Frederic has found fairyland where few of us would dream of looking for it. 
. . . ‘ March Hares’ has a joyous impetus which carries everything before it; and it 
enriches a class offiction which unfortunately is not copious.” — London Daily Chronicle. 



REEN GATES. An Analysis of Foolishness. By 
Mrs. K. M. C. Meredith (Johanna Staats), author of “ Drum- 
sticks,” etc. 


“ Crisp and delightful. . . . Fascinating, not so much for what it suggests as for 
its manner, and the cleverly outlined people who walk through its pages.” — Chicago 
Times- Herald. 


“ An original strain, bright and vivacious, and strong enough in its foolishness and 
its unexpected tragedy to prove its sterling worth.” — Boston Herald. 


T 


HE STATEMENT OF STELLA MABERLY. 

By F. Anstey, author of “ Vice Versa,” “The Giant’s Robe,” 
etc. 


“ Most admirably done. . . . We read fascinated, and fully believing every word 
we read. . . . The book has deeply interested us, and even thrilled us more than 
one e.”— London Daily Chronicle. 

“ A wildly fantastic story, thrilling and impressive. . . . Has an air of vivid reality, 
. . . of bold conception and vigorous treatment. . . . A very noteworthy novelette.” — 
London Times. 


D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK. 


D. APPLETON AND COMPANY’S PUBLICATIONS. 


44 The Story of the Year." 
HALL CAINE’S NEW NOVEL. 



HE CHRISTIAN \ By Hall Caine, author 

“ The Manxman,” “ The Deemster,” “ The Bondman,” 
i2mo. Cloth, $1.50. 


of 

etc. 


“ One of the grandest books of the century-end.” — New York Home 
yournal . 

“The public is hardly prepared for so remarkable a performance as 
‘The Christian. 1 ... A permanent addition to English literature. . . . 
Above and beyond any popularity that is merely temporary.” — Boston 
Herald. 

“ Must be regarded as the greatest work that has yet come from the pen 
of this strong writer. . . . A book of wonderful power and force.” — Brook- 
lyn Eagle. 

“ The best story Hall Caine has written. It is one of the best stories 
that have been written for many years. It is emphatically the strongest and 
best story that has been written during the past twelve months. ... A 
masterpiece in fiction.” — Buffalo Commercial. 

“This extraordinary piece of fiction. None who read it will gainsay its 
power and effectiveness. . . . The remarkable book of the summer.” — New 
York Times. 

“ Of powerful and absorbing interest. The reader is irresistibly fasci- 
nated from the very beginning. ... A remarkable book.” — Philadelphia 
Press. 

“A noble story; one of the best half-dozen novels of the decade; a 
splendid piece of writing ; a profound study in character, and a series of 
thrilling portrayals.” — Chicago Evening Post. 

“ A book that has assuredly placed its maker upon a pedestal which will 
last well-nigh forever. . . . Powerful, thrilling, dramatic, and, best of all, 
intensely honest in its every line. ... A truly wonderful achievement.” — 
Cincinnati Commercial-Tribune. 

“ By long odds the most powerful production of his very productive pen, 
and it will live and be read and re-read when ninety per cent of the books 
of to-day are forgotten.” — Boston Daily Globe. 

“Though the theme is old, Mr. Caine has worked it up with a passion 
and power that make it new again. . . . Can not fail to thrill even the most 
careless reader.” — New York Herald. 

“ 1 The Christian’ is one of the strongest novels of the year, and is in 
some respects the greatest work this author has yet produced.” — Philadel- 
phia Evening Telegraph. 

“ Indisputably Mr. Caine’s strongest and most important work.” — Phila- 
delphia Bulletin. 

“ A powerful story. . . . The portrait of the pure womanliness of Glory 
Quayle is beyond any praise we can bestow.” — N. Y. Mail and Express. 

“ By far the strongest novel that has been brought out this year. ... If 
you once dip into it you must stay with it until the end. It lays hold upon 
your heart and compels attention.” — San Francisco Chronicle. 


D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK. 


» 76b 


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